Hold On
by sharinganavenger
Summary: There's a crash, a fall, and it's over. Only sometimes it's not. A different take on the lightjet scene: what if Sam ended up falling, too? AU end of Legacy.
1. Fall

A/N: Right. This fic was originally published on the meme as a fill. The prompt can be summarized as follows: "Lightjet chase, Sam ends up falling too; he and Tronzler hang out and talk." I'm abbreviating/summarizing, but since I ended up going wildly off-prompt anyways... yeah.

What I can tell you: 11 chapters. Sam/Tronzler (though it's a plot/character fic mostly). If you read it as I first posted, while I continue to take joy in readers and reviewers, there might not be a ton of point in rereading_;_ I'm editing very little. I'll be cleaning chapters and posting at a hopefully-daily rate; if I take much longer, there's something wrong with me, given how little I'm planning to change.

...Onwards?

* * *

><p>"That's it. It's over…"<p>

Sam stared out from the turret, where just moments ago, death had loomed with such certainty. But the sprays of light, the orange and yellow fire, were gone—and in one crash, the threat was ended, slagged bits and chunks spinning outwards.

Shock turned to relief, and a grin spread across his face as he shouted, louder "It's _over_!" Laughter and a whoop came from the front—Quorra, sharing his joy at their survival. Sam glanced behind him, saw her smile as she pulled the craft out of the dive, saw his father seated beside her, a look of contemplation on his features. Sam shook his head and turned back to the rearview, smirking. _Still with the Zen thing? Really, dad?_

He froze, staring. A flash of light—something massive and orange and THERE _and oh SHIT—_

A shattering crash and a roar broke Sam's world and he was falling, flying, knocked back in a rushing surge of chaos. Up was down and down was blue and white and reddish-orange and all shattering, all breaking to tiny crystals as he tried to hold on. Color spun around him as he tried to orient, an electrical burn surging through the controls as he yelped and let go—they sparked and shattered.

Dark clouds. Black sea. The horizon—no, up should be _that_ way. The ship—_half_ of the ship, his father's form in the segmented opening, all serenity lost, shouting panic into the wind.

"SAM!"

The sea again.

Ignoring the nausea as he continued to spin, Sam kicked off the fragmented seat, pushing himself away from the wreckage as it sizzled and dissolved around him. He'd have patted himself on the back for that if he weren't still falling—seconds later, the tangled heap detonated like a bomb, something inside overloading. Sam winced as sharp crystals cut a line into his cheek, but these fragments were too small for real damage.

_That was it,_ he realized, air rushing past him. _The first crash, with the two jets…_ A chunk must have hit the plane. Nearly hit him—a bit more directly, and... He snorted, looking down. _Yeah, this was the_ lucky _outcome._

Sam spread out his limbs, damping the dizzying spins as he looked up—_back? No, sideways now_—for the others. The craft looked terrible, its back half broken off, the v-shaped tail just gone. The white lines flickered along its sides and wings, and he somehow doubted Quorra was directing that pitch downwards. Hopes he hadn't known he had dropped with the oversized jet, and failed to mirror its lurching struggle back up.

They weren't coming for him.

_They can't come,_ he told himself. _That's different. _They really couldn't, he knew that. From what he could see, they'd be lucky to find land (much less the Portal) before the damaged vessel fell apart on them.

So they couldn't turn back for him. Couldn't pull his ass out of trouble—_again, _he thought ruefully, thinking of the lightcycle grid, of the trap in Zuse's place. Fine. That was fine. He could manage himself; he'd done so for years in the real world—why was it so much harder when he was trapped in a bad computer game?

He had stopped turning, and it was much easier to look around when he didn't have to suppress the urge to puke. Right. Ocean. Sky. Floating rock things—what was with those? He shook his head. Didn't matter—he wasn't close to any, and even if he were, grabbing on would be… bad. _'Cause it would be much less fun being a splatted mess with one less arm._ Would he burst like a sack of meat, or break apart, or…? This was way too far to fall safely, even onto water.

Not helpful.

Right. Ocean. Sky. Falling.

_Shit._

"…I'm totally screwed."

He closed his eyes, desperation warring with despair. He needed a support. Or a parachute. Damn it, why hadn't he _kept_ that wing-pack he'd used to drop in the Rectifier? That would be perfect now.

A faint noise bubbled up in his throat, and then Sam laughed, a jerking sound that wouldn't stop coming. This was hopeless and stupid and fucking absurd.

But this was it, huh?

He opened his eyes, looking, really looking at the grid. Even this dark, desolate part was beautiful, in a weird and lonely sort of way. The sea underneath, darker and less reflective than he thought water should really be. The clouded sky above—did it always storm here? And the weird shapes of rock or glowing light—the inexplicable monoliths that stuck up from the sea below and floated in the air.

Against which a yellow-lit figure was visible. Moving, diving _sideways _through the air with purpose—

"Shit!"

Sam tensed, jerked back against nothing and floundered in the air for a moment. Clu was alive. He'd… he'd been fucking blown up, crashed in an explosion that had damn near killed _Sam_, and he was supposed to be gone and dead and… _no_.

Clu reached out suddenly, arms stretching forward to grab at something—no, someone. Sam hadn't noticed the fainter glow before, but from the reddish-orange tinge of the minimal circuitry, he guessed it was Clu's remaining soldier—the one who'd crashed into him. Defective? Whatever his malfunction… he was alive too? Sam put a hand to his face. Didn't anyone just _explode_?

Clu wasn't there to shake his hand, though. There was some sort of scuffle, a jerking, pulling motion. Sam saw the smaller program shoved back as the yellow figure kicked him once, then again—and he was knocked away, orange points of light spinning over each other helplessly.

Apparently victorious, Clu did _something_, pulled outwards? Sam couldn't make it out. The results were all too clear, and he watched with a sinking dread as yellow lines and curves formed out of nowhere. The jet blazed into life and shot upward, into the sky. And there wasn't a thing Sam could do about it.

His mind went to the stuttering, half-downed transport his father and Quorra were struggling with, and he tensed, fighting back useless fears. They would be okay. They had to be.

The remaining program dropped, unmoving, from what little Sam could make out. He squinted through the darkness at the form, the lack of lines and hunched in body. It almost looked like… _no_.

Sudden light came from the side as first the program, then Sam dropped below a monolith and into the light of another. Sam's mouth dropped, disbelieving. The form was clearly visible—tucked in limbs, skeletal lines on the hands, and that damn helmet.

_Rinzler. _

"Fuck it… no!" Sam's incredulous voice came out half-strangled. "You're supposed to be _dead!_ Quorra and I… well, mostly Quorra, but… you fell!"

Sam stared at the program that had wounded him in the arena, chased him on the grid, hunted them in the Rectifier, menaced them on the bridge… anger and frustration rose up, warring only with a grim satisfaction. If he had to die, at least he'd see this bastard go. And first, too; Rinzler was below him.

Then Sam realized Clu's assassin was staring back.

Sam froze. Stared at the black figure as it stirred, limbs gathering with purpose, head cocking as it looked at him, gaze invisible behind the helmet, but unquestionably focused.

Then Rinzler reached out and came _up_.

Sam nearly shit himself.

He wasn't _rising_, of course he wasn't rising, they were both falling, both doomed. But he was falling slower, spread out limbs dragging on the air in the same maneuver Sam had tried to approximate for stability—but he was doing it right. Doing it _better_. And despite Sam's lead, despite the time Rinzler had spent falling with no attempt at control, the program was catching up to him.

Sam panicked. He tried to kick, to run, to move—but he couldn't run, he was falling, and he couldn't control it. His useless flailing dropped him further out of balance, and he begun to turn slowly in the air.

"Shit, shit, shit!" The program was nearer, the shapes of his orange lights now visible against the black form, the only deviation from his perfect posture the helmet still tilted up, fixed on Sam as he closed.

_Not helping!_ He had to calm, balance, be stable—hell, be Zen. Only he didn't feel very fucking Zen, and he couldn't stop spinning, much less lie flat, and the wind was rushing by and he didn't have _time_. And as disappointed as he was to realize _this_ was his strongest reaction to Rinzler, Sam couldn't get the quote from that stupid movie out of his head. _"Sometimes fear is the appropriate response."_

…Only it _wasn't_ appropriate; he was going to die anyways, what did it matter—

A hand closed around his arm and Sam's terror made itself known with a half-stifled shout he preferred not to call a scream. He jerked back, tried to get free, but only pulled himself closer, colliding against the program's chest. He shoved on that, struck out awkwardly with his unrestrained left hand at the clustered lights in the center, but the grip was solid and unmoving.

Realization flickered through Sam's mind, and he reached behind himself, straining for the weapon on his back. Too slow—the program's empty arm batted his own aside and reached over his shoulder to pull him close, pinning Sam's disk between them, inaccessible. Rinzler's stuttering rumble surrounded him, the roar of the wind not even helping to drown it out now. He struggled uselessly against the program's grasp. _Too slow, too weak, too late. Should've thought of the disk earlier. _Even this bastard couldn't dodge in freefall. _Probably._

And now he was trapped. The helmet shoved forward against Sam's head, and he grimaced as he tried to hunch away. That noise was louder, more insistent, and tuning it out didn't help—he could feel the corrupted rattling vibrate through his body, surrounding him, invasively overwhelming. He was trapped. He was helpless and falling and _held._ He couldn't fight back, he couldn't get away, and he _hated_ this program with a cold, impotent fury as its noise rose up in bursts of staticky sound, pressing at his ears even through the tearing of the wind. Sam gritted his teeth, waiting, fighting the useless panic with rage as he thrashed ineffectually, tensing against anticipated pain, and _couldn't he have just waited forty seconds for the ground_—and wait.

Were those _words_?

"—have to—"

The sound was rough and scratchy and broken-sounding, a corrupted file trying to playback through some of the worst static Sam had heard. He turned his head to stare at the featureless mask, trying to tear meaning from the wind's roar and the unsettling rumble that never went away.

It didn't make sense. Rinzler didn't talk—apart from the "user" back in the arena. _Okay, so maybe he only talks as he's deliberating a kill. _But that word had sounded a lot better than the noise coming out of the program now, and Sam didn't think it was all the wind. Even focusing on it (rather than shutting out the sound with all his power), not much made it through.

"Use—from—in arena." Sam's confusion burned away as hostility rose up again, overwhelming. That was right, they _had _done this before. He remembered the solidity of the arena floor, cool smooth glass pressing against him as the faceless program held him down—with edged disks ready to slice, rather than hands gripping him close. He glared back at Rinzler, seething with anger as he hollered through the rushing air.

"If you're looking for a rematch, you've got about thirty seconds left!"

He regretted the suggestion as the form around him tensed, hands clenching painfully before loosing to the previous hold. _"No." _Sam could feel a crackling effort wrecking through the program's chest and throat as volume was forced into the vocalization.

"The baton—from your—use it!" The sound was urgent, though still difficult to decipher. If the ceaseless rumbling reminded Sam of a broken hard drive, Rinzler's voice now sounded like someone had taken the drive and smashed it, crashing and shattering mixed with an electrical crackle.

What he was saying, though… Sam's face twisted in confusion, his hand hesitantly moving down. The lightcycle baton? From the blue program Clu had destroyed? He had no idea how the hell that would help—_does he want something besides my corpse to break the fall?_—but it seemed to be what Rinzler was after. The impression was unexpectedly confirmed as the program, seemingly frustrated at Sam's fumbling reach across his body, abruptly released his right hand, shoving it down towards the tool. Sam considered using his new freedom to throw a punch at the black-shelled head behind his own, but the angle was _terrible_. Besides, it'd be much more effective once he had the baton.

He unclipped it, half-expecting to have the rod snatched away, but the program's only response was an increase in the rattling noise, disturbingly reminiscent of a purr. Sam tensed as he glanced down—the water was closer now; the lowest of the huge rocks visibly rushing towards him. Rinzler's buzzing, crackling speech sounded again, but Sam didn't need to focus to know what was being said. "Use it." But how? Why? _How the fuck is this going to help?_

"Look, I love bikes as much as anybody, but—"

A unintelligible burst of static-filled noise cut through his speech like a wail of frustration, and Sam's world went sideways. He was flipped and shoved, maneuvered, his frantic attempts to lash out terrifyingly ineffective. The baton was pulled from his grasp; well, he'd _expected _that—but the program was still in motion. Sam turned, was grabbed and shifted, and when he abruptly stopped moving, he found their positions were nearly reversed. The orange-lit program was in front of him, still far too close, one arm reaching back to grip Sam's shoulder. Although he mostly faced away, Rinzler's upper body was twisted back, helmet cocked and staring inches from his face.

Sam headbutted him.

He connected solidly, somewhat to his surprise and entirely to his pain. The helmet felt less like a piece of armor and more like the arena floor—black, featureless, solid. _Yeah. Really should've known better._ Through his daze, he could see Rinzler shake his head, momentarily stunned—then the slackened grip tightened with a surging growl. Sam was pulled forward, the program's back now pressing into his chest, and he could feel the surging crackle of tense effort as Rinzler's vocalizations amplified, forced again to brief clarity.

_"Hold ON."_

The hand on his shoulder released, briefly trailing down to tug Sam's hand around the program's front before letting go entirely. Rinzler reached out, both arms on the now-orange baton and Sam glimpsed the water past his shoulder—shit, he could see the waves. They were falling, he was falling, about to die in a computer on top of a program who'd injured him, hunted him, tried and maybe succeeded at killing him… and who now asked Sam to _hold him. _

_The fuck?_

The helmet tilted back to look at Sam, and he glowered back warily. He could think of a lot of people he'd rather die holding. Rinzler didn't move, didn't react, although Sam could feel the tenseness in his form, the irregular rattling shaking through his chest. Whatever crazy plan he had, whatever he had wanted with the damn baton… he was waiting.

For Sam.

_Screw it._

He grabbed on, both arms across the program's chest, and Rinzler moved, head jerking frontwards as he pulled the baton apart. Sam groaned, his head dropping to the dark-suited shoulder in frustration. _That was it? _But he made himself look, watching through the rezzing lightcycle as the blackness rushed towards them. He wouldn't turn away, and it was still beautiful, even now. There was light and water and lines of orange stretching forward into handles and nose, out into…

Oh.

_...Oh. _

_It can do that?_

Sam's grip tightened as the jet formed and he slammed forwards against Rinzler's stillness as the drop became a dive.

They skimmed the water's surface, then rose above.


	2. Children

_Sam._

Flynn closed his eyes, despair and urgency shattering his attempts at control. A thousand cycles of meditation, and he still couldn't stop seeing his son's face, falling through the sky in a rain of destruction. Falling away from him.

Flynn had cried out, half thrown himself through of the back of the lurching vessel, heedless of Quorra's alarmed shouts. But it was too late. Sam was lost to the wind and the sea, devoured by the emptiest parts of Flynn's world.

Quorra saved them. She took the wrecked, broken craft and forced life into it, drew power from shattered engines and pressed the jet until it nudged upwards, rose, began to lift. Flynn hadn't cared.

But she had saved him, too, called back until he numbly sat down, told him again and again that it wasn't over. That there was still hope. Told him until he believed it.

If he could reach the portal. If he could dredge the Grid from the outside, _find_ Sam, save him or fix him or… he didn't know. But out there, he could control the system. Could pull back the sea, could find his son and protect him. Hell, he could put a pillow-covered trampoline under the kid. _Not that it would help…_

He staggered under the unchangeable knowledge. Sam would have _hit _by the time they reached the portal. Hopelessness threatened again, and he pushed it back. Sam would be alive. Flynn would make it out, would save him. He had to.

So he had leapt from the wreck before Quorra could even touch down, run up the stairs, raced towards the portal. And now he opened his eyes, dispelled the despair, and stared down the narrow bridge at the program who stood in the way.

Clu had been speaking, a taunt of some sort. Flynn hadn't paid attention. He looked at Clu's face, _his _face, twisted into a grin that traced out triumph and bitterness, joy and anger. There had been so much he had wanted to say to Clu. To reach out to him, to make him understand. To apologize.

He couldn't bring himself to care anymore.

_Sam._

Flynn walked forward, moving towards Clu, towards the portal, stepping out on the bridge. Clu's eyes narrowed, smile fading away.

"I did everything. Everything you ever asked." Flat, accusatory.

Flynn nodded. "I know you did." He could feel the waves of energy rushing off the portal, a faint blue mist spreading as rings of power rose and fell. So close. And impossibly far away. Clu was stronger than him. Younger. While he had waited and disciplined his mind, Clu had trained and ruled and readied for war. Flynn hadn't regretted the difference. Until Sam fell. And Clu blocked the path to save him.

His voice was angry, defiant. "I executed the plan!" The plan didn't _matter_, had never mattered. Flynn had been too blind, too stupid to see that. He had left behind his friends, his wife, his son, to come and play god. To toy with perfection instead of living with it. Clu was his fault, his ignorance, his responsibility. And in any other situation, he would have accepted the burden.

"Clu, just stop." They were nearly within reach, both passing halfway across the bridge as Clu mirrored Flynn's approach.

"Please." He could hear the tremor in his own voice. _Maybe, just maybe…_ Clu was him, after all. He _had_ to understand. "I need to go through. Sam's hurt, falling, I have to—"

_"Him?" _The tension in Clu's face flared into a snarl of anger, and he closed the distance between them. His eyes flicked behind Flynn, and he realized with a sinking heart that Clu hadn't even noticed Sam's absence. Hadn't cared. Why would he? Flynn never had, not then. Not enough.

"You promised me that we would change the world together." The voice was hoarse. Jealous… but more than that. "You broke your promise."

Kevin Flynn stared into his own eyes, looked away, looked back, and said the only thing he could. "I'm sorry, Clu."

"He's my _son._"

His likeness twisted with rage and furious hurt, lashing out at him. Flynn gasped as the kick connected with his gut, knocked him back and down. Clu strode towards him, but Flynn struggled up, driven by panicked urgency, and tried to run past Clu to the portal. _Sam_.

The program grabbed him, threw him down, and Flynn's head hit with a crack as he skidded on the smooth platform. He looked dazedly up and for a moment, hope rekindled—he was closest to the portal, nothing obstructing the path. Then Clu filled his vision, and Flynn fell back as a gloved fist connected, another grabbing, holding him down. He closed his eyes, overwhelmed by hopelessness, the bitter irony crushing as his mistake stopped him from doing things right. Water hit his cheek.

_Water._

Flynn opened his eyes and saw Clu. The program loomed over him, body tense, furious, fist clenched in his maker's robe as he shoved Flynn into the ground. His face was a mask of rage, mouth partly open as if searching for words. His eyes glared down, accusing. Wet.

Clu was crying.

Flynn stared, lost for words. Clu stared back. And then the program's gaze snapped sideways and he pulled back with a snarl, a blazing streak of blue missing his head by inches.

Lifting his head, Flynn followed the disk's path as it shot back to its owner. Quorra crouched at the start of the bridge, one hand low, the other reaching up to catch her weapon. Her face was tense but even, the slight flicker of her eyes to Flynn the only sign of worry beneath the calm.

Clu stood straight, staring at the new arrival with a smirk that showed no trace of distress. If his eyes glittered, it was only with malice, and a corner of his mouth rose in a disturbing parody of friendship as he spoke. "The virus. Of course." He took a step forward, hand going back to his own disk. "This does seem the time to tie up loose ends."

Fear gripped Flynn and he pushed himself up halfway. Not Quorra, not her too—the last of his miracles, the hope he'd kept secret for so long. "Clu, no! Don't—"

The yellow program turned back, calm shattered by a flash of hate, a stab of pain as he cut Flynn off. "What? Is _she_ important to you? Not just another of your worshipful toys, so convinced of your godhood as to try to die for you even when abandoned?" His eyes narrowed. "Or is she special? After all, she's not a _basic_, not a tool. Was that a comfort during your years alone—no little boy, but a girl, a 'miracle.' Do you think of her as yours?" Clu looked down at Flynn's stricken face, and his features turned savage. He jerked his disk free.

His voice was a hiss as he strode towards Quorra. "I'm going to _enjoy_ this."

Flynn sat there, frozen in shock and fear and something that hovered on the edge of comprehension before he shook himself free, fumbling with trembling hands to push himself up, draw his legs under him and stand. He regarded Clu as he advanced, Quorra as she waited, braced. And then he slowly turned the other way.

The portal was clear.

Flynn's hands tightened into fists as he took a step closer. _Sam._ Flynn had done so much wrong, had failed his son in every way. And now, he might be dying. _Might be dead,_ but _no, no… _Flynn couldn't think that. He could help Sam, he _had_ to help Sam.

But Clu hadn't been wrong.

He turned, gazed across the bridge to Quorra, who raised her disk to block Clu's downward blow. Clu was brutal in his force, but she angled her response, sliding and parrying the strike. The yellow program lashed out with a foot; she faded back.

Her head lifted fractionally as she glanced past Clu, and Flynn could see her eyes widen in surprise. _"Go,"_ she called, her voice insistent. Flynn blinked in shock, realization dawning. _She planned this? She drew the fight there_? He stepped hesitantly towards the portal, looking uncertainly behind.

Clu's head snapped around, and he moved, battering Quorra back before turning and sprinting after his creator. Flynn backed up in a half-run, tried to turn, and slipped, falling prone. Clu was closing, and Flynn scrambled desperately for purchase, tried to push up, crawl back, get away, get to Sam. Too _slow_.

A glowing figure dropped from above, and Quorra was there, disk raised with her left hand, light cable retracting towards her right even as the beam katana extended from the other side of the rod. She raised the blade, blocking Clu's advance, gaze fixed on her enemy even as her voice pitched towards Flynn.

"Get up, Flynn. Sam needs you. _Go._"

Her words pierced the veil of panicked confusion that had pressed at him as he stared up at the pair. Clu had halted, disk in hand, teeth bared as he stared with pure hatred at Quorra, eyes flickering to Flynn with something desperate. Quorra was a blaze of white tinged blue, her circuits seeming to glow with defiant strength as she stood above, guarding him, protecting him. She was magnificent. But she was right, Sam needed him, and he had to go, had to move now. He struggled to his feet, turning, stepping towards the portal, now only a few paces away. And then he turned, disbelieving, at her whispered addition.

"This is _mine._"

Her voice was quiet and overflowing with unmistakable intent. Words not meant for Flynn, a softly spoken promise of cold anger as she faced her enemy, weapons out. Faced _Clu_, faced his misguided creation who grinned with spite and vicious acknowledgment as he returned the look, meeting her icy calm and discipline with his own burning fury. Burning resentment, burning pain that the yellow figure didn't even try to mask.

Flynn closed his eyes, shaken and torn and _broken _by the scene before him. He had known, of course. A thousand cycles of hiding, of waiting and studying and games while he spoke to her of calm, of quiet readiness. She had been ready, always ready, always tense and eager and pained by the stillness. Quorra was a warrior, an aggressive, impatient student of peace who took joy in life and motion, in action. And she was an ISO, the last ISO, a survivor of Clu's purge, a living memory of the thousands he'd killed, of the injustice and oppression he'd forced on the system.

Tears welled up and he blinked them back, gazing at the contrast with helpless, empty loss. Was this how it had always ended? ISO and basic, his miracle and his system, opposing forces destined to tear each other apart. They stared each other down, blue and gold tension and anger and loss, both passionately straining towards the other's death.

Quorra broke through his grieving reflection, her voice commanding and easy, free in a way that made him ache. "Flynn! It's time."

He shook his head even as he stepped back, desperate words, useless promises tumbling from his mouth as he moved towards the light, towards _Sam_, towards the son who needed him. "I'm not leaving you!"

"Flynn." Even from here, he could see the curving, calm smile as her head lifted, tilted partway towards him. "This is what I want."

He knew it was, and that hurt above all else. Past her, Clu let out a small sound and edged forward, halted by Quorra's blade. But he wasn't looking at her; he was fixed on Flynn, desperation and hunger in his face, raw anguish bleeding through as his creator met his gaze.

Flynn closed his eyes, shame and need and guilt tearing him apart.

_Sam._

"Goodbye, Quorra."

As he crossed into the portal, he heard his voice rising behind him in a scream of furious betrayal as the clash of weapons broke through the hum of power around him. He pulled off his disk, thrust it up before he could reconsider, and it rose on the streaming waves of light, a rush of power pulsing up into the sky. The Portal surged and he felt the charge build as the blinding glow trailed around him.

He looked back.

Clu was savage, striking out at Quorra with half-crazed blows, more speed and force in his attacks than Flynn had ever been capable of. She slashed back, ducking and dodging, parrying with her disk as her blade spun and swung in from the side, the top—then pulled back to defend. Her movements seemed constrained, and Flynn realized with a surge of fear that she was limiting herself—refusing to move back. She was fighting a defensive battle, forced to use all her skill and speed to avoid the devastating attacks of her larger opponent. But she fought not just to win, but to hold Clu there.

_To protect me._

Clu kicked out and she leapt above it, refusing to give ground. But Clu had seen that, had realized the intent of her awkward sideways twists, and as she landed off balance, he beat down on her brutally. Disk and sword crossed as she caught the attack, staggering as Clu's disk grated against hers, shoving down with force she couldn't match.

Clu's gaze teemed with emotion as he looked down at the ISO, up past her, to Flynn. His mouth opened, tracing words Flynn couldn't hear, but his eyes were clear enough. Frustration, hunger, _need_ called out brokenly, an agonizing reminder of what should have been. Flynn wanted to turn away, to close his eyes, break contact, but found himself stepping forward, towards the edge of the portal as it hummed around him, driven by the sudden, overwhelming desperation to make things _right. _To save Quorra, to help Clu, to hold his student, his creation, and never let them go. But he had to leave, had to go. Sam.

…They were his children too.

_And I abandoned them._

"Flynn, _go!_" Quorra's voice shattered the moment as she half-turned, eyes wide, staring. And he froze, familiar terror stealing his breath as the symmetry hit him like a physical blow. _Move, run, do something this time,_ but the echo gripped him, and his legs were leaden, never fast enough. The nightmare had come to life, and he was fading, dissolving, held in place as the light sang upwards. Clu's Rectifier rose over the horizon, casting the scene in orange, and the last thing Flynn saw was the furious pain on Clu's face as he struck down at Flynn's protector.


	3. Recognition

A/N: Things slow down for a bit, though hopefully you'll still be entertained. Much thanks to everyone who's read and reviewed; your enthusiasm has been awesome.

* * *

><p><em>Well,<em> this _is boring._

Sam leaned back against the cliff and gave a halfhearted glare at the water. The sea was fairly gentle here, washing against the shoreline in soft waves that reminded him more of an overgrown lake than ocean tidal forces. Though if there wasn't a moon… _Right. Ignore logic._

He let his gaze wander from the too-dark water across the rocky shore. Nearly two hundred feet of grey-black stone before the cliffs rose up on either side to match the 'natural' wall behind him. It wasn't sheer by any means, and he'd climbed it—only to find more of the same: broken slabs and barren ground as far as the eye could see. He'd dropped back down.

But the tiny cove was _empty_. No sound but the water, nothing to see but dark rocks, dark water, dark sky above. He'd paced back and forth, circled standing boulders and peered at the (impenetrable) blackness of the water. There was nothing here, nothing for who-knew-how-far around.

_Well, nothing but Rinzler._

Sam glanced at the helmeted form, and his jaw clenched. The program had turned off as soon as their overburdened jet had reached land, emitting a burst of crackling static Sam couldn't even hope to decipher before half collapsing against a vertical slab and going still and dark. Sam had been confused and wary and more than a little alarmed. But when he looked, the program's suit still faintly glowed with a muted, flickering light. And the freaky stuttering purr was there, if quieter. He had backed away, uneasy. _He's probably fine. _Shut down, or in sleep mode, or… whatever it was programs did. Sam missed a world where the word "unconscious" meant something.

Sam studied the program again—from a distance. He couldn't see the lights anymore, and though he strained, nothing was audible but the soft movements of the waves. Dead programs were pixels, right? Or… whatever those broken bits were.

_Why do you care?_ He dropped his head back against the cliff wall and stared up at the cloudy sky before peering back at the still-motionless form. Rinzler was Clu's assassin, his enforcer. Sam would be lucky if he never woke up—the smart move would be to make sure of it, not spend time worrying about a downed enemy while his dad and Quorra could be hurt. He tensed miserably, recalling the state of the broken white craft, Clu's yellow jet rising through the air unimpeded. The portal had gone dark before they'd even reached the shore, and Sam wasn't really sure he could find it again—but that didn't mean he should be doing _nothing._

He should at least get out of here. If he didn't want to kill (_derezz?_) Rinzler now—and he didn't; the surge of uneasy guilt was pretty clear on that point, thanks—then he should move. Put some distance between them. Whatever was wrong with the program, there was no reason to think he wouldn't wake up functionally murderous. He was unarmed; Sam had cautiously removed the baton once Rinzler was out of it, and the program's disks were apparently missing already. But just because _he_ was the one with the lethal Frisbee didn't make Sam eager for a rematch.

It wasn't like he owed Rinzler anything.

"Damn it." His voice sounded strange in the silence. Sam pushed himself off the stone and irritably went back to pacing. He _didn't_ owe him, he knew that—the program was just saving himself. Sam had the baton; of course he had to get it from him. And it made sense not to waste time trying to kill Sam, and made sense…

_Screw it._ He kicked a rock, watched it clatter over the ground and drop into the water. It didn't make any sense. Because Rinzler _hadn't_ just saved himself. And he could've—he'd grabbed the baton, could've kicked off and flown away on his own. _Would've been easier,_ Sam admitted, rubbing his sore forehead awkwardly. So maybe his ineffective struggles hadn't been the best plan he'd come up with all day. _Add it to the list._

Still. _Why?_ He couldn't stop thinking about it. Not that there was much else to do here. It had been Sam's baton—was the program running on some weird sense of rules? Or maybe Clu would've wanted him alive. That made more sense. Sam didn't doubt Rinzler would follow his directives, even at risk to himself. Though the image of Clu's attack on the smaller program—of Clu stealing his baton, Sam realized—wouldn't go away. He shrugged. So Clu was a bastard to his people. _That doesn't mean they disobey him._ Memories of the Rectifier flashed through his head, the thousands of orange-lit troops stepping in line, and Sam stopped pacing, looking warily at the limp black form. _It doesn't mean they_ can _disobey. _

He should leave. He should head back up the cliff, pick a direction, and get some distance. A lot of distance, if he could figure out the baton properly. Why should he care if he left Rinzler to wake up (_or die_) alone? That just meant less targets in sight, right?

Sam rolled his eyes and stared up at the sky. _Right. 'Targets'._

The lightjets. Watching from the turret seat as the orange craft swept out of nowhere, fired short, accurate, bursts that crippled his ability to shoot back, hovered behind them… and _left_. Flew away from the fight.

That hadn't been an accident. And the collision afterwards wasn't a mistake. Rinzler was clearly messed up somehow—his collapse made that obvious, if his behavior wasn't sign enough. But after the fall, after the easy—_embarrassingly_ easy—way the program had handled him in midair, Sam couldn't believe Rinzler was glitching so badly as to mistakenly crash. He'd chosen not to take the shot, chosen to run into Clu. _And fuck if I know why._

Sam sat down, glowering at the sea. Of course, the crash had been nearly as bad as continued fire would've been. For Sam, obviously, and the others… his throat clenched and he glared at the unresponsive program as he recalled the lurching of the broken craft. And then Clu following after. Rinzler had made that happen, had let that happen. If his dad was hurt, or Quorra…

He looked up at the empty sky, and the flare of anger washed away, leaving a pained tightness in his chest. It was over. And he should go, should find out how it had ended. Find out if _he_ was stuck here for the next twenty years. He flinched as the thought formed, stupid and selfish and useless _again, but what's new?_ His dad was what mattered, and Quorra, and—

Light flickered at the edge of his vision, and Sam spun, scrambling quickly upright. Rinzler lay still, slumped several yards from Sam against the rock where he'd dropped. But now the cluster of squares below his throat were blinking with a bright glow: on-off, on-off. Sam stared, fascination tempered by fear, hand twitching towards his disk before dropping to his side. _Well, something's finally happening. Last chance to run?_

This was probably a mistake.

_But hey, hate to break the streak._

The flashing lights surged, and then the program relit, all of his circuits suddenly bright against the black armor. Sam tensed, warily watching.

After a moment, his brow furrowed, and he squinted, head tilting. That was… different.

_Why's he blue?_

Sam waited, studying the unmoving program. The brightness of Rinzler's suit dimmed quickly to a fainter steady glow. Apart from the color, the circuits looked the same—dots and dashes for the most part, skeletal lines tracing part of the hands as they lay to his sides. The helmet, touched with small streaks in the back, hung forward, nearly hitting the clustered squares in the center of the chest. The color was less pure blue and more a blue-shaded white, he decided. Kind of like Quorra.

Sam grimaced, restless, but unwilling to turn away. What did the colors even mean? Clu was yellow, his people orange or orange-red. Quorra, his dad, and most of the friendlier programs he'd met were blue or white. _Color-coded morality?_ He almost groaned aloud. It would probably be a plus for him now, but… still. _Cliché, much?_

He hesitantly picked his way closer. Rinzler hadn't stirred, hadn't made any noise. Was he even awake? Was he paralyzed? Thinking? Waiting for someone dumb enough to get within arm's reach?

Sam's gut clenched unpleasantly and he forced himself to take the last few steps. Not running away. Right.

He stood in front of Rinzler's stillness and frowned down at the hunched-over form. Something else was different. Sam's brow furrowed in confusion as he identified the change—no, the absence. Rinzler was _quiet_. Completely so—and before, even when the program was shut down, the rattling had been audible from further than this.

_He doesn't _look_ dead._

Rinzler's head snapped up, and Sam flinched back despite himself. The black helmet tilted, fixed on him for a long moment, then turned away as the program seemed to look around, assessing.

Sam watched, limbs rigid as he suppressed the panicked urge to arm himself that had joined his latest adrenaline surge. _Why did this seem like a good idea?_ The lack of murder attempts (_so far_) was excellent, but now what? Rinzler didn't even _talk_, not really, so—

"User."

_Right._ The program was staring at him again, a look Sam returned edgily. How could he have forgotten _that_ wonderful conversation. The word was clear, if slightly distorted in tone. Sam blamed the helmet. It was creepy, a black void where a face should be, faint reflections warped across its surface as it angled towards him, waiting… _oh_. Okay, then.

"…Program?" _Yep, eloquence all around._ What was he supposed to say?

A faint hissing crackle came from the program, like the noise you got if you exhaled into a microphone. Sam's brows rose in fascination. Was that a _sigh_?

"Why are you here, Sam Flynn?"

His eyes widened. _…What?_

"Wait—you talk?" The question came out in a startled burst and he flushed slightly as the helmet angled in response. "I mean… yeah. Okay. But you sounded… different before." He shut up. _It's true, though._ The wind had stolen most of the volume, but during the fall, Rinzler's speech had been a cracking broken noise, static and buzzing and raw painful sound. And before _that_, if he had done anything but growl creepily, Sam had missed it. _Except the once. _

But the growl was gone, and the voice was quieter now, no longer forced or crackling. Rough, tired, almost hesitant—_with disuse?_—but in the end, just words, backed with a faint electronic hiss. "There was… damage."

"Damage." Tone flat, eyebrows raised. This felt weird as fuck, like walking up to a tiger and arguing with it—outside the zoo. But his day had left the realm of remotely sane about halfway down Encom Tower. He was getting a better explanation than that.

Rinzler's fists clenched, and Sam eyed him warily, but the program's motions were slow and unthreatening as he pushed himself up to a sitting position, back against the slab. Tension lined his body, and Sam half-expected to hear the menacing rumble restart, but the silence was broken by speech, not stuttering.

"My code was damaged." The slight distortion of the helmet did nothing to hide the fury in the words. "_Corrupted,_" Rinzler spat.

Sam stared, uncertain if he should be readying a hug or a headstart. "But… you're fixed now?"

The program was silent. His head dipped slightly, and although the helmet still roughly faced Sam, he had a feeling Rinzler's gaze was directed anywhere but. The program's hand came up slowly, circuited fingers touching the dark helmet, which twisted the blue lines in reflection. He froze. Stiffened. Then a shudder passed through the program's form as the hand dropped back down, curling again into a fist. His head shook slightly.

"No, Sam Flynn. But now I know I'm broken."

Sam gazed down at Rinzler for a long moment, then crouched abruptly, firmly ignoring the spike of unease as he settled beside the program. The helmet followed his movements slowly, as if uncertain of his intent. Yeah, well, Sam wasn't really sure either.

"Sam Flynn—"

"It's Sam," he interrupted, then looked away, feeling foolish. "Just… just Sam, alright?"

The program studied him for a moment, head tipping fractionally to the left. "Sam. Why are you here?" Softer, hesitantly, "Where's Flynn?"

The first question confused Sam, the second hit him like a blow. His jaw clenched, and he turned away from Rinzler to glower at the sea. "He didn't fall. If that's what you mean." The plane, falling, rising again in halting bursts. Clu following. Sam closed his eyes, shook his head, gazed back up at the black and empty sky. "I don't know."

The faceless attention was fixed on him. "Then why—"

"Why do you _care_?" Bitter anger bubbled up as he glared at the dark-armored program. "You're Clu's—" _pet, servant, monster_—"Clu's killer! You were hunting us!" Sam's hands moved in twitching gestures of frustration as he vented. "Why does it _matter_ to you if my dad's safe?" _Or is he just seeing what's left to take care of?_

The program froze, rigid and unmoving for several moments. Then a tremble passed through his frame, and the helmet lowered, slowly jerking from side to side as he shook. Without moving substantially, he seemed smaller somehow, shoulders hunched in as his hands clenched, loosened, came up, dropped down again.

Sam stared, resentment bleeding out to faint regret and alarm. He leaned cautiously forward. "Rinzler?"

The program stiffened, circuitry flickering visibly. "_No._" The whisper was harsh. Desperate.

Sam paused, then shook his head. "Look… why _do_ you care? You helped us, I get that. You saved my ass, that's for sure." His hand went up, fingers brushing his forehead as he spoke. "Thanks. I guess." He continued awkwardly, "I just… why? You helped me, you crashed into Clu…"

"That was all I _could_ do." Bitterness, but not at Sam. _Shame?_

He tried again. "But why did you? Don't think I'm not grateful, 'cause really, man… I am." He wanted to laugh, but it didn't seem that funny. "But I thought you were Clu's… program. Isn't that what you're designed for? To fight for Clu?"

The helmet stilled, shook slowly, then jerked in sharp denial as Rinzler raised his head and straightened, mask fixed on Sam. "_No._" Louder, firmer this time, though with the same painful undertones.

"I fight for the users."

_…Bullshit._

It had to be. But somehow… faint whispers crept at Sam's mind, understanding tugging him along. His dad's voice, sketching out the Grid with toys and stories only a child could believe. Older, tone dark as he described Clu's takeover, his own escape. And then a word, a name whispered in quiet horror. In _loss_. Sam hadn't listened. Hadn't cared—not when Quorra was being dragged off by Clu's faceless assassin.

But now his dad was gone, Quorra was gone, and Sam stared back at the empty mask as the program looked at him. _'Broken.'_ His eyes flicked down, stopping at the clustered lights that traced a familiar outline in blue-edged white. _No. No way._ But the echoes faded, leaving empty knowledge behind, and by the time he shaped the words, it was hardly a question.

"…You're really Tron?"

A tired voice responded. "I was."


	4. Power

Flynn leaned over the touchscreen, heartbeat pounding in his ears as the clock display flickered above the lines of code.

_Twenty-two seconds._

He was numb, mind hazy with shock and despair even as his hands flitted over the glowing keys. Twenty-two seconds to seize the open interface, delve into the code with commands he wasn't used to typing, functions he itched to grab by hand and expand. He was too _slow_, too unfamiliar. But he had done it, selected, identified, frozen all ongoing processes localized to the Portal and its surroundings. He hadn't found Clu yet, which made a painful sense—his double had _how_ long to prepare for this—but the Rectifier was an easily identified structure. He'd trapped it in a loop, paused all associated programs.

He hadn't found Quorra.

Flynn shook his head, clumsy fingers furiously pulling up data as he breathed, trying to guide the panic out. He _couldn't_ find Quorra, not so easily. Her sequencing was enormously complex; there was no easy identifier to latch on to—and centuries of viewing her structure in the Grid prepared him not at all for trying to formulate the lines onscreen. If he had more time, more focus…

But he had taken too long already. Twenty-two seconds. _What, a quarter hour in there?_ More. Far too long, far too slow to be of any help. He had faced this problem decades ago, showing up after a week at Encom to find some new issue with his fledgling system, Tron and Shaddox overwhelmed after nearly a cycle of constant struggles. He had known it wasn't working; that was why he'd designed Clu…

Clu, standing above Flynn's defender, striking down in vengeful fury. Clu had destroyed Tron, so long ago. And now Quorra… _no_. He couldn't lose her too, he wouldn't.

_Conviction won't change the truth. _A lot could have happened in fifteen minutes.

And he couldn't help her now.

_Sam._

A list of data scrolled across the screen, and Flynn focused, willing the lines to memory—more than memory, to concepts he could use. It looked so alien, so strange after all this time, and puzzling the rows and symbols into the same instinctive structure and meaning that the Grid provided… it was like hearing a familiar tongue through a heavy accent. The understanding was there, but so much was frustratingly unintelligible.

For this task in particular. Flynn refined the list, staring again as he tried to place things. Locational parallels between the Grid and the system code had always been a nightmare—one he had usually avoided by going in to work on projects. But sometimes he had needed to develop larger areas while still receiving feedback from inside.

The information scrolled out: search vectors, implanted paths he could work from. Scanning the entire Grid would take hours—days or weeks in there. The new list all showed faint glitches in the data buffers when selected. _Good. _He was looking at the Sea of Simulation.

Flynn copied over the markers he'd pulled from the digitizer records, then hesitated. Mass of uncompiled, shifting code that it was, the Sea distorted local data—and interfered with scans. _Even if Sam's there, even if he's picked up, it might not identify him. _Maybe he should try a different technique, break into Clu's command network, find something more effective…

The blinking numbers above the array flared in his brain with a shock and he rushed to complete the line, furious at himself for delaying even as he activated the scan. If this failed, he would find another implementation; if he had thought of a better method, he could have switched to it immediately. But to sit there thinking of "maybes" and "ifs" while his pounding heart counted out minutes and hours for Sam… that was inexcusable. Unforgivable.

And even that perspective was wrong, because it didn't matter if he could forgive himself. It mattered that Sam was in danger, and Flynn wouldn't fail him again.

Search initialized. Flynn blinked as the display wavered in his vision, the rapid pace of his breaths contrasting with the dull shock and fear still creeping through his mind. His fingers twitched, the urge to do something, _anything_ overwhelming. He stopped, exhaled deeply, pushed himself away. Anything he tried now would slow the scan, delay finding Sam. _If this even works. _He didn't know.

He stared at the screen, then shoved himself up with a frustrated groan as he turned to pace the small room. It was funny. For hundreds of cycles he'd dreamed of blue sky, crowded streets of crazy, imperfect humans, the complex touch and smells of real wind on his face. He'd missed the world so much it hurt. Over time, he'd learned to be still, to wait, to get past wants and needs with calm discipline. But the ache was still there.

And here he was, alone in a small, dusty room. No sky, no wind, no people. His discipline hung in tattered shards of grief and panicked desperation. And his son was gone. Flynn closed his eyes.

_Sam._

He stumbled—on the chair, he'd thought—and a small object skidded across the hard floor. Flynn frowned, picked it up. The flat rectangular shape fit easily but unfamiliarly in his grasp. This didn't belong here. Had Sam left it behind?

He turned it cautiously in his hand and almost dropped it as one side lit under his grasp, screen flickering and changing. It was… a display? So _small._ And touchscreen, too. The image that now showed was of a weird little dog, eyes bulging out and ears straight up. Flynn marveled at the resolution and focus of the picture even as Sam's words echoed back to him. _"Dog. A rescue." _A faint smile came to his face, even as his eyes flicked anxiously back to the still-searching computer.

Flynn sighed and sat down again, turning Sam's device over in his hands as he gazed distantly ahead, breath settling into familiar patterns. Then his focus shattered, his patterns broke, and he _did_ drop the display as it burst with movement and noise, the little dog jumping forward, giving sharp barks—looping again, and again.

He grabbed it from his lap in disbelief. _Wait, _video_? On something this size? How did they even…_ Fascination and joy budded in his mind, ideas spinning wildly. Flynn grinned, shook his head in amazement as the image paused at his touch. Man, if the future had _this _kind of tech…

The desk beeped loudly.

"Match found."

Nothing else mattered. Attention narrowed, all Flynn's hopes and need surged to the front, homing in on the lines onscreen. Each second again a priceless waste. There was active user code in the system, _Sam's_ code—localized by a data collection unit near the edge of the Sea. Flynn had added a swath of them shortly before becoming trapped, part of his efforts to study and remove the infection in the Sea. But the why was unimportant; what mattered was that Sam was _there._

Moisture gathered in Flynn's eyes, and he blinked the tears away, unwilling to let anything obstruct the vital, beautiful data in front of him. _He's alive._

No time. Status. Was Sam all right? He jabbed in a query, glared at the rejection, tried again. Annoyed, he called up the entirety of Sam's detected code—and stared in bewilderment at the torrent of noise. His heart sank in despair. If he was unfamiliar with external views and _regular _system commands… Flynn had never dealt with another user's code. He'd only barely handled his own, copying elements to use in Clu's creation. This was a mess, unfamiliar and useless to him. And he didn't have time to learn.

_What can I use?_ He tapped into the data collector, requested local anomalies—and frantically aborted the streaming list that followed. He scowled. The Sea was all anomaly, and the repeated lines of VIRUS DETECTED didn't help. He knew what Clu had done to the Sea. He needed to know about Sam.

He tried again, running a more generalized search from the same vector for nearby structures, programs—anything in proximity to Sam that could pose a threat. Background data flickered by as the scan ran, and Flynn stared at it, frustrated. He _knew_ that stream of information had everything he needed. If he could only format it to comprehension, make it useful in some way…

"Match found."

His gaze sharpened on the window. And Flynn froze in shock. Horror. _Loss. _And desperate, painful terror. 'Program detected.'

_'System designation: Rinzler'._

"…Tron."

The word echoed hollowly in Flynn's ears as he stared at the screen numbly. No, he wished he were numb, wished the grief and nausea and urgent spiking panic would fade away to dullness. To calm. But his heartbeat pounded in his ears, and a wordless tension clutched at his throat as the dread, the understanding, came back in full force.

It had been so long. So much time spent mourning, raging, simply missing Tron. He had never gotten past it, he knew—never forgotten the scream of pain as his creation, his double, his twisted, frustrated _copy _had killed his friend. While he hid. Ran away.

But it was worse than that.

Clu hadn't just destroyed Tron, hadn't just taken him from Flynn. He had _taken _him, claimed Tron and warped him into a monster. Flynn had heard of Clu's killer from the occasional reports, from Quorra's stories of her trips to the city. Clu's assassin, Clu's murderer, the graceful perfect tool of death that hunted down hidden ISOs, derezzed rebel cells to the last program. The unbeatable champion of the Games. Flynn had never made the connection—never even considered it. Rinzler was everything Tron would never have allowed.

And he was there, in the Grid. Now. With his son. _Sam._ Who could be hurt or fighting or dying for all Flynn knew. And the sorrow, the horror, the fear sharpened to a painful focus as it hit him.

He had failed Tron. Failed Clu. Left Quorra behind, been too _slow_, too useless to help her. But in this instant, in this single moment, he could be fast enough for Sam.

_…No._

The command was short, so easily typed, white cursor slowly flashing on and off at the end of the line. No time to debug, to override Tr—_Rinzler_'s complex systems. Not when Sam was at risk.

_No._

It wasn't Tron anymore. Flynn could see code scrolling past in a side window as the scan continued to output. Alan's familiar structure lay underneath, a touch of Flynn's own upgrades—but mired in numerous patches, protocols, directives overlaid again and again in a way Flynn didn't have time to understand. Not now. Besides, he did understand, had seen Clu's work in action, seen…_ Rinzler_ as he lunged to strike with familiar, devastating grace. He shook his head, breath sharp as the cursor flashed again. Not Sam. Flynn had to protect him, had to do one thing right. _Just hit the damn key already!_

_"No."_

His voice was hoarse. Broken. Flynn pulled back from the computer, head falling as he shook with revulsion, fear, frustration. Hopeless, hopeless failure. He had to do it, had to keep Sam safe, had to cease the pitiful, terrifying echo of his mistakes. Tron would have preferred to derezz—must have _wanted_ to end, time and time again, over the hundreds and hundreds of cycles. _I _left_ him to this._

He couldn't do it.

Not without knowing, without trying, without certainty that Alan's program, _his_ program, was really gone. Useless hope lurched at the thought—with enough time, he could fix Tron, could remove whatever Clu had done and make it right again.

But there _wasn't_ time, and his hopes meant nothing to the very real threat. Now. To Sam.

_I need to know._

Flynn stared at the code as it streamed past. Clu's work, his work, structural code, the Sea's glitches and errors permeating it all. Virus. Flashes of something even more confusing that had to be Sam. All raw data, jumbled and useless to him. But it described everything. He looked, watched, glared with desperate need as he willed the output to comprehension. His eyes burned, his breath came in short harsh bursts, and his hand… ached sharply. He glanced down, realized he was gripping Sam's little display, fist rigid with painful force. He loosened the grasp, tried to slow his breathing, to close his eyes, to _think,_ find a solution, a way to know what was happening, to _see—_

He stopped. Froze. His eyes focused on the screen, jerked down to the device in his hand. His head turned slightly, the computer's light reflecting off narrowed eyes.

Time blinked past in glowing numbers as Flynn got to work.


	5. Corruption

The silence bothered Sam.

He stared at the program next to him—at _Tron_. Who stared at… Sam didn't know. The creepy helmet was angled down, ahead. Towards the water? His half-clenched hands? Was he looking at all, or just remembering? No way to tell.

"Dad used to talk about you." A momentary stillness, then Tron's head rose, fixed on him slowly. "Just… stories, mostly. Kid stuff. I don't know how much…" Sam trailed off, self-conscious, gaze dropping momentarily. He shook his head, eyes flicking back. "He thought you were dead."

The program flinched, helmet shifting left, away from Sam as it jerked unevenly from side to side. He was tense, silent long enough that Sam was half-convinced the headshake was the answer when Tron finally spoke up.

"No." The voice was dark with cold fury. "Clu wouldn't…" He broke off, and the next words were flat. Empty. "He didn't want me dead."

Sam watched as the mask tilted, tipping briefly towards him, then lowered, turned away. He frowned, opened his mouth to reply, but stopped as the program continued, voice quietly harsh. "He repurposed me."

Sam waited, but nothing more came. "Repurposed?"

"Reprogrammed." Rinzler—_Tron_ seemed to shake with contained aggression, muscles tensing and twitching restlessly as he sat. The agitation was unmistakable, but Sam felt a strange lack of fear. _Probably a bad sign as far as my survival instincts are concerned. _He almost snorted at the thought.

But Tron wasn't done. "Clu changed my… code." The tight hostility filled his voice, speech patterns as well as tone, and though the words were perfectly clear, Sam was reminded of the earlier bursts of broken noise. "Destroyed—corrupted—" The volume decreased, energy bleeding out as something else joined the anger.

"He broke me." _Pain? Fear? Sadness? _The black-shelled head twitched as if to look towards him, but dropped back down. "I was 'his killer'. Worse." Sam's own phrase, bitterly repeated.

Sam swallowed, staring at the helmeted program. _Guilt._

Tron wouldn't look at him.

"…What changed?"

A half-shrug answered him. "Nothing. Everything." The program shook his head, not bothering to lift it. "I saw you. Flynn. I… couldn't take the shot." Tron didn't move, but his circuitry dimmed, flickered momentarily. "Then I remembered why."

Sam exhaled shortly, gaze shifting between the unmoving program at his side and the dark waters and monoliths in the distance. He shook his own head, mouth twisting as he glanced at the dark sky. "You'd think he'd have seen it coming. After… all that. That you'd remember, attack him—"

"No." Tron's fists clenched, voice edged with self-loathing, circuits flickering. "I _didn't_ attack him. I…" Sam sat up, attention sharpening as a crackling harshness shaded the program's voice. _Something's… wrong. _Tron's hands came up to his helmet, blue lights guttering, dimming as the program hunched inwards.

"Tron?" The black form shuddered, lights flaring back before darkening, fading in intensity and color, a dark orange glow seeping through in patches. "Tron!" Sam's breath caught with sudden tightness, urgent panic rising as he scrambled to turn, to _move._

He reached out for the program and grabbed hold, hands latching onto shoulders as Tron curled inwards. His grasp was jolted as the form tensed, shook. Short bursts of static came like rasping breaths—and then the helmet jerked up, black reflections staring Sam down.

Sam stared back, firmly overriding the urge to flinch, turn away, sprint madly in the opposite direction. His own white glow played off the glassy surface of the mask in lines, mingling with the reddish orange streaks near the back, faint seeds of blue still visible underneath. Sam was shaking too now, alarm and terror and anxious desperation driving his mind in tiny circles as he held on to the dark shape.

…Who sighed, a distorted, tired hiss through the helmet, and the tension faded. Orange slowly bled out, blue lights pulsed, steadied dimly. And Tron's hands dropped, head falling back against the rock to gaze upwards as his form unclenched.

Sam didn't let go.

"Tron?" The helmet tipped slightly. Sam exhaled, wide eyes closing briefly before opening to regard the program. "Are you… okay?" He half-winced, the question incredibly stupid before it even left his mouth. But that didn't seem to make much difference.

"I'm… myself," the answer came, and Sam's eyes narrowed in frustration. _That's not what I meant. _But Tron was still talking, and he focused on the tired voice. "Clu… did things. Commands, directives—implanted, layered. I can't… I remembered myself, but the corruption's still there."

Sam looked at the program, whose head hesitantly lowered to meet his gaze. "But we can fix that, right? Undo whatever's changed?"

Tron flinched, turning away before shaking his head. "Not without my disks. And even then…" His voice was wary, guarded. "I don't know. I'm… working through it."

Sam eyed the program as he sat, gaze averted, painfully rigid under Sam's grip. He sighed, then shifted, settling again beside Tron, but closer this time, left arm reaching behind to rest on the program's shoulders. Tron stiffened, head raising, tilting at Sam, who returned the look, eyebrow raised. He wasn't letting go unless Tron asked him to.

Tron didn't. He glanced away, facing the sea for nearly a minute before the helmet angled back towards Sam.

"I didn't attack Clu." Tone flat. "I… _couldn't_." He shook his head, voice still calm, but laced with bitter hatred. "If I'd just shot him down, if I'd fought for the baton…"

"You did a _lot_," Sam interjected. "Saved me for sure." He thought about it. "…Twice?"

Tron shook his head, though he didn't speak up. Sam could guess what he'd say anyway. _'Not enough'_. Was he blaming himself for Sam's falling now? Or just the pursuit? Hell, for all Sam knew, he was going back to the day of Clu's betrayal. He frowned, eyes narrowing as the program gazed blankly at the sea. _He probably_ is.

Sam wasn't good at this. The last therapist he'd been sent to had kicked him out in eight minutes (he'd been proud of the new record at the time), and apart from the mess in the arena, he had no idea what Tron had been used for over the last twenty years. _Or was it more time in here?_ Whatever. He didn't know what to say, what to do—but an anxious desperation welled at the back of his mind, a panicked certainty that if he _didn't_ do something, Tron would just… keep doing this. Turning inwards. Hiding. Breaking _himself_.

He swallowed, opened his mouth with no idea what to say, and froze as the black mask swiveled towards him. The lights were blue-white, still clearly Tron, and the way it tilted was patiently questioning, but… _Damn, that's still creepy._

"Do you… need the helmet?" The moment the words popped out, Sam flushed. He wished it was the dumbest thing he'd said all day. He really did.

Tron tensed under Sam's arm, hand coming up to brush the dark glass. His head dropped, turned to the side, and he froze, rigid for several seconds. Then the hand fell away and the program shook his head, trembling slightly as bitter fury tinged his voice. "I can't… take it off. Clu didn't want—" he broke off, frustration obvious.

Sam watched, a question turning uneasily in his mind as Tron's fist clenched. He didn't want to push the issue, but… "Could I try?"

Tron stilled, head slowly rising to face Sam. He didn't answer. Sam's discomfort grew as he looked back, seconds passing in what was either silent evaluation or one of the most unfair staring contests he'd ever been in. Then the program nodded.

Sam blinked. "You mean—"

"Yes." The word was terse, Tron's voice edgy. "Go ahead."

Sam opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it. _Right._ Tron sat rigidly still, mask tilted downwards, waiting. _…How do I do this?_ He hadn't quite thought this through. His own helmet had just kind of… folded back. When he wanted it to. Rinz—_Tron, damn it!_ …Tron was obviously having problems with making that work. But there had to be some kind of external release, right? Or Tron wouldn't… _Screw it._

Sam reached out, right hand coming up tentatively to the angled edge of the mask. It was cool to the touch and unsurprisingly hard. Rounded, though, with no obvious seam or trigger. He felt further up the corner, tracing up the program's jaw. Tron tensed, and Sam hesitated, but the program didn't speak. He cautiously resumed, bringing his other hand up from Tron's back to explore the other side. There were faint lines along the surface, but nothing seemed separate. Underneath, the solidity faded to the more flexible material around the neck—but they were joined, not detachable.

He examined it more closely. It was smooth, with little in the way of joints or connections. With Tron's head lowered, he could see where it overlapped with the armor in back—no obvious crevices or switches. In addition to the four dashes on the sides of the head, there was another line of color on the back—a short vertical stripe Sam hadn't seen before. Curious, he reached up to touch it.

His finger contacted the circuit, and it blazed blue with a jolting surge. Tron gave a strangled intake of breath, and the helmet jerked up to _stare _at him as Sam yanked his hand away. All of the program's lights had flared, brightened, and now fluctuated with blue-white intensity as Tron looked at him, head tilted nearly sideways with what had to be incredulity.

Sam flushed, swallowing as he stumbled over his own words. "I—uh—sorry. I didn't…" The program's gaze rose up to the sky, and Sam shut up as Tron shook his head slowly. He rubbed his fingers uneasily against his palm—they still tingled slightly from the contact. Tron's circuits dimmed gradually to a steady glow, and the program turned to regard Sam before dropping his head and resuming the motionless position. _Right. Try again. Only with less… whatever._ It didn't seem to have _hurt_ Tron, just…

He focused on the helmet. Frustratingly solid. Black. Keeping him from seeing whatever facial expression Tron had just made. Probably for the best on that last one. His fingers traced the edge, tested the connection with the bodysuit. No breaks, no asymmetry. Tron shivered slightly as Sam traced a finger down his neck, but the program didn't move or protest. Not that it helped. Sam was half-wondering exactly how his father's in-Grid coding had worked (and half-concluding that Tron was _not _a good choice for experimentation) when his hand caught on something under the edge at the back. He reached further and pressed, carefully avoiding the line of light above—and the helmet fractured, pieces collapsing and folding back.

Tron gave a shuddering sigh, and Sam pulled back reluctantly, giving the program space. _Brown hair. _That and shaky, quick breaths now clearly audible, though quieting. Sam watched, fascinated at what little he could see as Tron sat, head bowed, hand jerkily raising to his forehead. It lowered, fingers ghosting across his features, then dropped as Tron haltingly raised his head towards Sam.

His face was pale, an almost ghostly white that Sam felt sure wasn't normal. Tron's gaze fixed on Sam's own, but also flickered to the sky, the sea, the rocks, taking in the world around him as if for the first time. Eyes wide, almost wondering… but haunted, too. His mouth was a determined line.

Sam blinked. Tired blue eyes, straight nose, even the shape of the jaw and face… the word fell startled from Sam's open mouth as his brow furrowed. "Alan?"

Tron stopped, stared back at Sam, stared past him, eyes distant as a faint and disbelieving smile twitched across his lips. "…The name of my user," he responded, voice an echo of something Sam didn't know. It didn't matter.

Sam grinned back, just so glad to see Tron smiling.

They sat like that for a while, Sam watching Tron watching the world. _Looking _at the world, visibly breathing it in. Idle questions flickered through Sam's thoughts—how dark was it in there, do programs need air—but he was content with sitting in silence, just viewing the relief and intensity washing across Tron's face. Sam was still half-marveling that he had a face—and it might have been Alan's, but the shadings of time and expression made it distinctly Tron's as well.

"Sam." _Now the _voice_ might really be Alan's. _Sam had no idea how he'd missed it before. He blinked, met the program's gaze, eyes piercingly direct and mouth set in the serious line Sam was already beginning to think of as Tron's default expression.

"Thank you."

Sam swallowed and nodded awkwardly. He hadn't done anything, not really, and a joke ran through his head somewhere about the exchange rate between rescue and clothing removal, but none of that seemed to hold up to the clear unwavering acknowledgement in Tron's tone and features. He wanted to argue. But more than that, he wanted to earn the trust and gratitude Tron had offered so unflinchingly—or not unflinchingly. Effortfully. Despite everything he'd been through. The program's eyes shifted out to the sea, gaze distant. Bleak.

Sam would settle for just seeing him smile again.

Tron's attention flicked back to him, and the program hesitated before speaking again. "Why _are _you here? I… you've helped me. More than I…" His fists clenched slightly and his head dipped, gaze dropping from Sam as he continued. "But I didn't expect to come back online with you still here. What about Flynn? And… the ISO. Don't you need to find them?"

Sam noted the vague wording of Tron's 'expectations', grimaced at the unpleasant but fair implications. He had thought of it. As for the questions… Sam sighed, stared up at the black sky before dragging his focus back to the waiting program.

"I don't know." He jerked his head upwards. "The portal's closed early. That means someone made it through, right?" Tron gave a half-shrug, not disagreeing. "So either it was Dad and Quorra, in which case it'll all be fine… or it was Clu. Which would mean…" he trailed off, throat tight. "Yeah. I should go."

Tron had visibly withdrawn at Clu's name, shoulders drawing in as his hands clenched, features blank. Sam's conclusion provoked a small nod, and the program tensed, struggle visible on his face before his head dropped further, quiet words coming out shakily miserable. "I'm sorry."

_Okay… no_. Sam looked at the program, clenched his jaw, and counted to ten as an impressive number of profanities scrolled through his mind. Then he reached out and grabbed Tron by the shoulders, half-yanking him out of the hunched in position. The program stiffened, pulling back, but Sam didn't let go, waiting until Tron's head came up in confusion to meet his look.

"You do _not_ get to be sorry." Sam closed his eyes, opened them, stared at the uncertainty crossing the program's face, guilt painfully clear beneath. "Damn it, Tron—you didn't do anything! _Clu_ turned on Dad, attacked us, screwed over the Grid! You worst, from what I can tell." Tron flinched, opened his mouth to reply, but Sam wasn't letting him argue. "You saved us. And if you want to blame yourself for what he made you do..." Sam shook his head, wordless. "The moment you got a chance, you helped! You're helping now!" His face tightened with agitation, embarrassment, urgent need for Tron to _listen._

Tron was quiet as Sam searched his features. The program's eyes dropped, reluctantly came back up. His face was mostly still, a slight unhappy twist to his mouth as he faced Sam. Then his head shook faintly, and the look receded, Tron's expression controlled and even as he raised an eyebrow at Sam.

"All I'm doing now is delaying you." Tone calm, not without a flicker of humor, but nothing else. "You should go. Whether or not he made it out, Flynn will be worried."

Sam stared back, frustration welling, then exhaled slowly. "You're right." He let go of the program and pushed himself awkwardly from the ground, stretching stiff muscles. Tron watched him, unmoving, a flicker crossing his eyes. Sam looked across the sea and pointed in a vaguely leftwards direction. "The portal's over there?"

"About 12 degrees left of that." Sam nodded at the program's assessment, squinted out at the empty sea. Nope, no difference he could make out.

He turned back, regarded Tron as he looked up, dim blue glow reflecting dully on the rocks. The program cocked his head, waiting, and Sam raised an eyebrow in response. "You getting up or what?"

Tron's face blanked. His head tipped further sideways, calm dissolving to a startled confusion that made Sam grin. _So much better without the helmet. _"What?"

"Come on. You're right, Dad's gonna worry."

"But I—"

"If you're injured or something, I can maybe carry you. Not ideal, I know, but you don't look much heavier than Quorra."

Tron stared at him, bewilderment fading to an exasperated look. "Sam. There's no—"

Sam leaned over to whisper, face close to Tron's irritated glare. He could hear the smirk in his own voice. "Not leaving without you." He straightened, hand out to help the program rise.

Tron looked up at Sam. Amusement, regret, uncertainty wavered through his features. Sam looked back, his own appreciation of the sight checked by a thread of desperate anxiety that seemed to tighten in his chest as the program's head dropped, shaking slightly. Then Tron reached out and took his offered hand, and Sam's grin widened idiotically as he gripped and pulled the program up.

Tron stood, unsteadiness giving way quickly to even balance. He glanced at Sam in wry resignation, shaking his head again at Sam's expression. Tron's circuits flared slightly, and Sam glanced down, realizing he still hadn't let go of the program's hand. _Right._ Sam hesitated, eyes tracing the white-blue lines along the fingers, then abruptly pressed the grip to a faint shock before dropping Tron's hand. He turned his head, acutely embarrassed even as his gaze flickered back. Tron's eyes had widened, reflecting the sudden surge of light. He stared at Sam, glanced down at his hand, up again as he bit back some response. _Confused? Cautious? _Sam couldn't tell. He didn't seem to be offended, but…

Sam stepped back, looking around as he tried to redirect his focus from the growing discomfort. Sky. Sea. Rocks. Tron. _Right, the fascinating landscape again. _He sighed, turning back to look up at Tron as he opened his mouth awkwardly.

_Wait. _

"Wait." Sam cocked his head, provoking a similarly confused response. He stared at the program. The ground. The program.

"Since when are you taller than me?"

Tron smiled.


	6. Lull

A/N: ...Short chapter is short. Sorry, guys.

In case anyone's curious, this is effectively the halfway point. It's also the spot where I finished writing the prompt and started writing my own special brand of insanity. Which is to say... this chapter may be short and relatively calm (hence chapter title), but tomorrow... things will start to get very interesting, _very_ fast. (This is the last of the slow chapters).

* * *

><p>Flynn stared. His breath caught, mind frozen in shock as he looked at the image, blinked back the tears that welled up.<p>

Then he let them fall as he sighed, _laughed_, tension fading to relief and amazement and disbelieving joy. He closed his eyes, opened them, took it all in again. The glowing desk, screen still scrolling raw data as it transferred the information. The tangle of cords and cables, hurriedly patched together in a desperate bid at functionality. And Sam's tiny, _vital_ video device, attached and processing and showing him a miracle.

The screen was dim, poorly rendered and even more poorly focused. There were faint lines and blurs, vague representations for system data Flynn hadn't bothered filtering. And then there was Sam.

_Sam._ Healthy, standing, _alive. _No damage Flynn could make out—and the picture might be distorted and oddly structured, but it centered on Sam, focused on the digitized code Flynn had run his search on.

And then there was _Tron._

The program blended into the dark background, but the 'T' still stood out clearly, bright blue against the blackness. Flynn could make out the shape, reaching up from the ground to take Sam's outstretched hand. Face blurred, but unhidden by Rinzler's mask. Because it wasn't Rinzler anymore, wasn't Clu's weapon, Clu's threat against Flynn's system and friends. Wasn't a danger to Sam. _It's Tron._

It was Tron, and Sam was _safe_, was alive and well. And Flynn wasn't too late, hadn't failed him after all.

He grinned, squeezed his eyes shut and let the moisture clear away. He wanted to watch it again, slow down the flickering data to a real speed and see everything, not just the timeskipped patches. If he refiltered and subdivided the scan data, he could probably set up sound as well. A rush of satisfied amazement washed through him as he looked down at the device in his hand. It was astonishing, so _small_, but fully equipped with video and audio and specialized data transfer capabilities even Flynn had trouble figuring out. He hadn't explored all it could do, but there were unique systems, processing power he was beginning to think surpassed the grid, and what looked almost like a phone function, of all things. Now that seemed weird. Still. _I have to get one of these. _

He felt his mind expanding at the possibilities, the conventional limits of technology peeling away. It was like in '82, before so much went wrong: a new world unfolding, ideas and potential branching off in every direction. A faint voice urged caution, reminding him of centuries of stillness, a devotion to a slower path. But now? Flynn laughed, shaking his head. _I've been still long enough._ Sam was safe; hell, Tron was safe. And he was out. For the first time in forever, everything would be fine. Everything was under control.

He looked at the device, tempted, then set it down, turning back to the touchscreen desk. _All_ parts of his mind were in agreement that Sam came first—and in the minutes he had taken to set things up and contemplate, his son had doubtless been waiting awhile. By the time he'd even caught up to the now-paused screen, time in the Grid had far outpaced the image? An hour? More? He itched to watch, keep an eye on Sam, but it wouldn't help. Time passed too quickly there; he couldn't see and react fast enough to be of help, no matter what rate he ran the video at. Instead, his fingers flitted across the keyboard, calling up the digitizer controls, resetting the portal functions. _What matters now is getting him out. _Besides, Sam had Tron to keep him safe.

Flynn smiled. _Tron. _Against all odds, Alan's program had pulled through. Flynn's next priority had to be cleaning Tron's code, now that he knew for certain the program could be salvaged. He could even call in Alan if he had to—if he knew Bradley, he was going to have to give some explanation for his long absence. Though now that he thought about it, he should probably check more for Quorra first. His joy faltered slightly at the memory, but he calmed himself. If he could help her, he would.

He shook his head, lips twitching upwards. There were so many things to do, so many things he could do now. That _they_ could do. He looked over the specifications, leaned in, and hit the key as he moved to the side.

"Portal activated." Flynn's eyes went to the video display, but he held off for now. He could wait. It shouldn't be long.

_Come on, kiddo._


	7. Meetings

They were maybe forty minutes out when the jet showed up.

The Outlands lacked convenient paths, but the Sea was an obvious enough landmark to follow towards the portal. The surface at the top of the cliffs was bleak and boring, just dark slabs on dark stone stretching off forever. But it _was_ flat, and stable enough. Mostly.

Sam had asked about using the baton, but Tron's reluctance was… pronounced. Sam still wasn't clear, even after the explanation, whether the doubled load _just_ made them a slow and easy target or if it also had good odds of crashing, dropping, or blowing them up. Either way, hiking sounded like a _great _plan—and Sam made sure to say so, before Tron could go back to thinking he should stay.

The program was quiet as they walked, though he responded easily enough to Sam's questions. Mostly Tron seemed watchful, head tilting as he looked around, scanning the landscape. Sam wasn't sure if it was wary attention or faint wonder, but he seemed to be trying to imprint each moment, commit every sight and sound to memory.

So Tron was the one who saw it coming.

Sam's awareness came when the program stopped abruptly, staring up and slightly to the right, over the sea. Sam turned back, waited. "Tron?" No reaction. Sam gazed out at the water. Sea. Sky. Rocks—some of them hovering, but that wasn't _new_, just weird.

"Lightjet."

Sam glanced back to Tron, the program's eyes fixed unblinking on the distance, voice calm, certain. He looked again at the darkness. Nothing.

"Are you—" _Wait._ There. A flicker. Sam strained, trying to make out the small glimmer again, and was rewarded by a small blink of light. His brows knitted in confusion—_How can he see that and say 'lightjet'?_—but he kept looking, spotted another short burst. If it was a jet, it had to be low to the water. Was it dodging behind the floating slabs? That might account for the flashes. He couldn't make out the color yet, but it was getting slightly bigger; in another second or two—

He fell out of his thoughts with a startled yelp as a hand closed around his arm, Tron dragging him back from the cliff. Sam opened his mouth to protest as he stumbled after, but the program shook his head, face grim as he nodded back towards the edge. "It's coming this way."

Sam swallowed. Looked at Tron, looked at the water. Nodded. He glanced around at the terrain. Flat. Open. No convenient overhangs or clustered heaps of stone. The best they were going to find would be something to hide behind, not underneath.

Tron seemed to come to the same conclusion. After a brief pause, he headed for one of the larger standing slabs, pulling Sam after him. Sam scowled, but didn't argue as the program tugged him behind the rock. Three seconds later, he stuck his head out to look. Nothing again. _It _could_ be gone_. He snorted at the thought. With his luck? _Not so much._

Tron stood close behind him, head peering past the stone, held at an angle as if listening—though if the program could _hear_ anything at this distance, he was a goddamn bat. Despite being more exposed than Sam, he blended eerily well with the background, dark suit against dark rocks, his minimal circuitry a dim glow. Sam wondered if he was doing that on purpose—and if it was something he could learn. Stone on one side, Tron covering the other, and he still stood out like a fucking glowstick, white lines practically surging with light. Was he _brighter_ than usual? Tron's eyes flicked to him, blue reflecting white, then returned to the sea.

Sam _hated_ waiting. "It's still coming?" His whisper was more nervous than he liked. Tron nodded, and he grimaced. "I don't suppose there's anything else in this direction?"

Tron shook his head, voice unnervingly calm. "Not along that path."

_Right._ Sam stuck his head back out for a better view. He could see it now, a shape as well as a light, edging in and out of sight as it passed the closer monoliths. It was white—no, white-edged blue, and for a moment, confused joy rose up. But it was too small, a single jet rather than the larger plane Dad and Quorra had flown in. It also wasn't missing a tail—although its flight was erratic. _Damaged?_ Still…

"It's blue." Tron turned his head as Sam spoke. "Doesn't that mean…" He gestured vaguely at the program's own lights. "Aren't blue programs on our side?"

Tron glanced away, expression unreadable. Then he shook his head slightly, turning back to Sam. "Mostly. Maybe. Circuit color shows a program's general function or loyalty. It's not a good way to tell immediate intentions."

Sam nodded, still mildly optimistic as he moved to take another look. Then Tron continued. "It can also be masked or imitated." He rolled his eyes. _Great. _

Sam didn't need to look now—he could hear the faint sound, a roar of wind and motion as the craft approached. Light built on the other side of the stone, and he stilled, hoping faintly that if he stayed behind the rock, it would keep going. Only that wouldn't _work_; once it passed, Sam would be about as subtle as a roadside flare, no matter how close Tron pressed to cover him—

The roar built to a screeching scream, and a crash of impact shattered his thoughts. It was close, _too_ close, too loud, a slamming crunch mixed with a sliding, grinding noise that set Sam's teeth on edge. He ducked back further, any urge to see what was happening vastly overwhelmed by his desire to not get hit by _two _exploding jets in one day.

The glassy breaking noise stopped, and everything seemed still. Sam waited, trying to muffle the sound of his breath as adrenaline pounded through his veins. Nothing. He glanced up at Tron, who had held position, just far enough out to catch a glimpse. The program tilted his head, an uncertain look crossing his features. His eyes flicked to Sam, and he motioned toward the cliff, pulling back to offer a better view.

Sam shifted over to look, and his eyes widened. The blue-white craft hadn't blown up, but… that was about all Sam could say for it. The wings had scraped low across the cliff—the tip of one had shattered off entirely, and the other looked about ready to snap at its base. The entire underside had _eroded_, catching roughly against the rocks like sandpaper, leaving splintered crystals and larger fragments spread across the ground in a line of debris. If that weren't enough, there seemed to be shattered holes and burned streaks through the jet's rear and top, still trailing broken wisps of light.

A groan came from the slumped over pilot.

Sam's mouth opened partway. _How the _fuck_ is he…_ The head rose, and Sam's breath caught. A large helmet, scored but intact, two blue-white lines curving in from the sides to meet a third that rose up partway in the middle. Below it, bare shoulders next to glowing circles and lines tracing downwards. Blue-white against the dark suit.

And Sam was scrambling out from behind the slab, running forward across the broken ground with an unintelligible yell of joy as the program—_she_, not he—struggled to her feet, helmet sectioning away to reveal dark hair, pale blue eyes that met his own straight away, and a wide grin of pure elation.

"Quorra!"

Sam stopped just short of touching her, his expression faltering as he got closer. The ISO did _not_ look good. What looked like a burned streak crossed her right jawline, tiny crystals darkened and cracking away. A limp in her motion drew his eyes down—she was lined with hairline fractures from the waist down, and her left leg seemed half-crushed at one point. _From the crash? _He couldn't tell if the wound to her torso was worst or best off: a faint line that traced down from collarbone to solar plexus—thin, but sparking angry red along the broken edges.

But she was standing, and smiling, and _here_, and Sam couldn't help but smile back, even through the worry. He opened his mouth, but she beat him to it, catching his concerned gaze with her amused one.

"I know. Better than the arm, though, right?" If she was in pain (_and how the fuck could she not be?_), it didn't show in her speech, or the wry laugh that accompanied it.

"On a case by case basis, sure." He shook his head, eyes drawn to the tiny black fragments falling away as her mouth moved. "How are you even _here_? Where's Dad?" He hadn't meant to ask the second question, Quorra was what mattered at the moment, but…

"He's fine." A knot in Sam's chest released, and he _breathed_ again. Funny. He hadn't known he'd stopped. Quorra's look softened, far too understanding as she continued. "Better than fine. He made it out, Sam."

Sam's eyes closed, the restrained fear and constant worry dropping away so fast he felt lightheaded. He was _so_ damn relieved, and things were okay, were alright like they hadn't been since he'd first fallen, first seen the broken craft struggling through the sky. He opened his eyelids to see Quorra peering at him anxiously. _Ha, 'cause _she_ should be worried about _me_ right now. _He forced a shaky grin. "Oh man, you have no idea how glad I am to hear that."

She smiled again, content. Then her lips twitched, and he could hear the humor in her voice. "As for me…"

She reached out, and Sam hesitated, uncertain. If she wanted support, he was there for her, but a panicky fear lingered in his mind that he could grab and have her shatter. It was stupid, he knew—she was standing, mobile, clearly strong enough. But he couldn't draw his eyes away from the cracks and scoring lines across her body now, the memories of programs shattering on impact—of _Quorra_ breaking under the guard's baton, falling limp and still.

But her movement was quick and deft, hand reaching out to brush the side of his chest. _No,_ he realized, _to brush the armor_. The slight overlap between the material had been the closest he could find to a pocket, and he'd used it for… the sector map Quorra now held up between them.

"I helped make this." Her voice was satisfied, a flicker of pride running through it. "It's easy enough to trace something that's mine. That I've worked on." The map disappeared into a pocket of her own, and she leaned back against the lightjet, brushing away some shattered edges.

He shook his head, staring at the crazy, amazing program in front of him. "Seriously. What _happened_ to you? How did you get…" he waved at her injuries as she cocked her head. "…like that!"

"Well, for a start, I crashed a lightjet…"

Sam groaned, shook his head and opened his mouth to reply when another voice spoke.

"That's a disk cut."

Sam tensed, spinning around before recognition calmed him. It was Tron (_of course it was Tron_), though how and when he'd silently appeared a few paces behind Sam was a complete unknown. The program's face was unreadable, eyes focused on the jagged break down Quorra's front, though they flickered to Sam as he turned.

Quorra blinked, shifted slightly, apparently less taken aback than Sam. Her gaze rested on him briefly, question obvious, before meeting Tron's look. "Yes." She tilted her head to include Sam, though her eyes didn't leave the new arrival.

"Clu showed up at the Portal. Flynn made it out, but Clu… had the advantage." Her voice tightened, eyes glittering with cold fury as they continued inspecting Tron. She half-smirked as she continued, though her tone was more distracted than pleased. "He knocked me over the edge without realizing he was missing something." Her head jerked back to the wrecked lightjet as she casually stood.

Sam smiled faintly, but his attention was halfhearted. He'd seen the flinch as Quorra mentioned Clu's return, the tension lining Tron's profile. It was disturbing how little motion it took for the program's shape to change so dramatically—half-clenched hands, head dipped lower, shoulders hunched. Sam frowned, frustrated and overwhelmed with the painful need for Tron to stop _doing _this to himself. But he'd only half-listened before, and now—

Tron's circuits darkened, flickered.

_Shit._

Sam stepped towards him, panic rising desperately fast as his throat went dry. Tron's gaze was fixed downwards, form rigid, head shaking slightly as the blue glow dimmed unevenly. He should've—

_"Sam."_

Something about Quorra's voice cut through his urgency, and Sam froze in place as he turned. Her tone was light, even… and about as friendly as her stance. Or her unmoving eyes, staring past him. Friendly like a blade.

_Oh, wait._ She already had that covered.

"Quorra, hold on a—"

"_Sam._" Her tone was cold with fury. With intent.

"Look, just—"

"Sam, move." Voice sharp. Sam's irritation flared, then faltered as he caught something else beneath her anger. Fear.

For him.

_Any other time, Q._ But not now, not with Quorra shifting forward, beam katana blazing blue. Attention fixed beyond Sam, to _Tron_, whose own focus was entirely elsewhere. The program tensed, curling inwards as he backed away, circuitry flaring and darkening in patches. _…Shit_. Sam needed to go to him, needed to be there now, but he stepped left instead, blocking Quorra as she tried to get past.

Her gaze flickered, meeting his eyes in frustration, and he returned look and feeling both. His hands had come up in agitated gestures as he'd tried to cut in, to make her _listen_, and he held them out now in a motion he hoped was calming. "Listen, Quorra, he's _not_ a threat. Just let me—"

Orange flashed at the edge of his vision, and Sam spun around and _ran_. Rapid steps behind him turned to a crash of impact, a hissing breath of pain, and Sam glanced back briefly to see Quorra on the ground, trying to push herself up on the right as her left leg refused to support her. Sam grimaced, worried and scared and _sorry_, but there wasn't time.

Tron had retreated nearly to the slab by the time Sam reached him. His head snapped up, jerking sideways in desperate refusal as his panicked gaze met Sam's. But it was _Tron's _gaze, Tron's eyes touched by alarm and distant rage as the program stared back—and the knot in Sam's chest loosened. Tron exhaled harshly, faint orange glow already fading against the blue, and Sam gave a faint smile as he reached out. The program flinched at the touch, but didn't pull away. Sam leaned closer as Tron shook, face strained and twisted with effort as he slowly unclenched. Blue-white light flickered, stabilized, and Tron's head dropped to Sam's shoulder with a tired sigh.

Sam held him, tense and grateful and so damn desperate with relief, and it took longer than he thought it should to make his mouth form words. "You're getting better at that."

Tron made a frustrated noise, straightening to look at Sam with bitter disbelief. "If by 'that' you mean losing control, _endangering_—"

"I mean getting it back," Sam cut in quietly. _Not letting you do this._ "You snapped out of it much faster. And it took you a lot longer to lose it." Sam didn't even think he had lost it, not really.

Tron shook his head, gaze dropping, voice soft and wearily hopeless. "That doesn't make—"

_"Sam."_

_…Right._

Sam let go of Tron and turned, taking a few steps back to face Quorra. The ISO stood rigid, the threat of her sword _far _outclassed by the fury in her expression. Sam glanced down in concern, but if she was worse off than before, her stance didn't show it. He raised his hands placatingly and she stared at him with flat disbelief.

"That's _Rinzler._"

"Not—"

It wasn't a question. "Sam, get out of my way."

"No." He could do curt, too. _Not helpful. _He sighed, tried again. "Quorra—"

"Sam, he's Clu's murderer! Clu's monster, Clu's glitching _pet_!" She spat out the words as she glared past Sam, unblinking. "He derezzed—_killed_… so many of us. Cleaning the 'errors' in Clu's perfect system." The flare of hatred grew soft, cold, as her eyes flicked back to him. "Move, Sam. Now."

He shook his head. Glanced back at Tron—he was still, expression hollow, gaze fixed on Quorra, or maybe past her—then again at the ISO. Her face was tight with rage, stance a painful readiness.

"It's not Rinzler." Her mouth opened, eyes flashing in poisonous denial, and Sam hurried on before she could cut in. "Not anymore. He's Tron."

She stopped. Looked at him. Her lips flattened in a line as her head tilted slightly, gaze settling past Sam for several seconds before returning to meet his own.

"That's what Flynn meant." Sam stared, uncomprehending. "On the lightjet." _…Nope, no idea_. He nodded anyway. She hesitated, eyes flickering down, then shook her head, expression troubled but set.

"I'm sorry, Sam. That doesn't _change_ things." It was her turn to speak quickly as Sam tried to interrupt. "Whoever he was before, he's been Rinzler for a thousand cycles. That's hundreds and hundreds of your years serving Clu—killing. Torturing." Her eyes went dark, anger welling again. "Hunting dissenting programs—and users." Her gaze flicked to Sam's shoulder, the faint line in his suit. "He hurt _you_—"

"He _saved _me! Fuck, he saved all of us!" Sam glared, infuriated. "You think he was 'serving Clu' with that collision?"

She returned his look, equally defiant. "I don't know. We can't trust him. He—"

"Yes, we can."

"Sam." There was an edge of tension to Quorra's voice, but her features were unnervingly calm as she regarded him steadily. "Even if you're right. Even if he's not 'really' Rinzler anymore, if he isn't a—" she broke off, words edged, then started again. "If he's not lying to you. Even then. Clu still…" Her mouth twitched unhappily. "…he's still _rectified_. You can't know, Sam. _He_ can't know."

She met his eyes, and he flinched. _It's true_. But he didn't have to know, it didn't _matter_ if he knew. He wasn't leaving Tron—and he _definitely _wasn't letting Quorra at him. He didn't have an answer, and she knew it, but he opened his mouth anyways—

"Sam." He turned at the quiet word, glanced up uneasily to Tron. The program's hands were clenched, face closed, reluctant. He opened his mouth, and Sam's eyes widened at the painful hesitation that flickered over his features.

_Oh no you don't…_

"She's right."

Sam expected the words. But it wasn't Tron who spoke them.

Tron froze. There was a hissing inhalation from behind Sam, a click and hum of an activating disk. And he stared past, unable to fucking _breathe _as Tron paled, jerked around and stopped… everything.

Clu leaned against the rock and smiled.


	8. Tools

Sam stepped back, hand fumbling behind him as he yanked his identity disk frontwards. A click sounded, his helmet dropping into place, and he brought the weapon up, readied.

Clu glanced at him and smirked. The expression was mobile, derisive, but eerily empty, and Sam was fascinated, repulsed at the way it played across Clu's face. _Dad's face_. It wasn't his father; fuck, it wasn't even how he looked now. _It's just how you remember him._ But _wrong_, twisted, a lie, a mask almost as unnervingly blank as Rinzler's helmet—

_Tron._

Sam couldn't see the program's face—not masked, not hidden, but turned away. Towards Clu, who rested almost casually against the slab of rock, eyes glinting with amused curiosity as he watched. Tron's body was rigid, hands clenching and unclenching, shaking with something Sam tried desperately to make out. _Fear? Anger? Effort?_ Sam stared at the program, dead center between them and Clu, and a cold fear trickled through his mind.

_He doesn't even have a weapon._

Quorra's voice cut through the silence, flatly disbelieving. "There's no _way _you followed me here."

Sam turned, realized she had edged up to his side, and hope wavered before his gaze caught on her damaged leg, burned face, the disk wound down her front. Her expression was pure life, though—shock, fury, and icy hatred. Calculation too—not in her look, but in how she looked, eyes flitting to Sam, resting warily on Tron and Clu. Blade up, disk ready. Sam just hoped she knew who to target.

Clu raised an eyebrow, responded calmly. "No. Your little trick was quite clever. Too bad Sam here's not as bright. Huh, kiddo?" Sam glared, opened his mouth, but Clu's voice continued, a darkly satisfied echo.

"After all, it's easy enough to find something that's mine."

His hand came up as he pushed off the rock, and Sam tensed, ready to dodge or defend against the now-visible identity disk in his grip. But Clu held it loosely, smirking at Sam's visible twitch.

"Something I've worked on."

The disk wasn't yellow.

Sam's eyes fixed on the orange ring at the center, a creeping dread coming over him as the disk pulsed briefly to life, white edge a vibrant contrast. Not white, _blue_-white—like the flaring response of Tron's circuits before they dimmed, flickering faintly. Tron made a low noise, hand reaching out, head jerking back in sharp denial. He shuddered, angry orange threading through the blue lights, and Sam's concern spiked to alarm as he stepped forward, his own disk lowering—

"_No_, Sam." The command was quick, urgent… and eerily synchronized, one warning from two directions.

Sam stopped, frustrated gaze passing from Quorra, whose even look was shaded with desperate concern, to Tron, face visibly panicked but surprisingly steady underneath. The program stared back at him, grey-blue eyes intent, flicking to the side to acknowledge Quorra's sharp regard before returning to Sam. Blue and orange mingled patchily throughout Tron's circuitry, and he grimaced before turning back abruptly, tension falling away. Tron dropped into a combat crouch, shifting on his feet. "No," he repeated quietly.

"Touching." Clu's tone was bored. "Rinz—"

"Shut _up_!" Sam's voice rose at the end, embarrassingly high pitched. It didn't matter. "You just—you're—" There weren't words for what he wanted to say, and he glared deadly fury as he stepped left. _One clear shot. Please._

"You're done." Quorra's voice, from the right, cold animosity expressed infinitely more articulately than his own hot rage. "Flynn made it out. No matter what you try here, it won't make a difference. He'll derezz you. _Delete_ you." Her teeth showed as she smiled. "Or maybe he'll just remove your admin privileges and let the rest of the Grid have a shot. There's a _line_."

Clu's impassive look remained, although it didn't quite meet his eyes. "Is that what you think? That Flynn will save you?" His mouth widened slowly in a vicious grin, gaze deserting Quorra for a better target. "I thought you had _learned_."

Tron flinched, froze, and something twisted in Sam's gut.

"Flynn abandoned you." His head rose as he spoke, including the ISO again as he continued. "But Flynn doesn't matter now. Or later." He smirked. "I've integrated myself with the system code. He can't touch me from out there—he can't even _find _me without ripping the Grid apart."

"Good." Sam's voice sounded strange in his ears, and Quorra's head angled towards him oddly at the edge of his vision. He didn't shift his gaze. "That means it's our turn."

He flung his disk with a yell, blazing white edge cutting a brilliant streak through the air. Clu leaned sideways and smirked. It flew past.

Quorra stepped to the side, eyes flitting across the scene in wary calculation, movements slow and careful on her damaged limbs. Tron shifted, repositioning in short, halting motions, attention fixed ahead. Sam caught his disk as it rebounded and raised it again, glared in rage and trembling fury, because _that bastard—_

Clu was laughing.

Shaking with laughter. One hand half rose in a dismissive motion even as the other came up armed. A click, a low hum, and Tron jerked, circuits flaring again as his disk lit in Clu's grasp. Sam tensed, but the program shook his head, facing forwards still, towards Clu. Who hadn't stopped _laughing. _

"You little moron." His father's voice cut across the gap, entertained and hateful and derisive all at once, and Sam flinched as he stared back at the yellow-lit clone. "You have no idea just how useless you are. I expected…" He broke off into a soft chuckle, letting Sam recall the rest on his own. _'More.' _More than the screw-up dropout with his bike and his dog and _fuck this_. Clu wasn't his dad. He wasn't.

"I _built_ the grid. Flynn may have set the foundation, but while he vanished for cycles at a time, while he wasted his efforts on a nothing like you, I created. And I learned. I built the system. I made it perfect."

Quorra caught Sam's notice—not through movement, or action, but in her absolute stillness. She stood, empty of tension but supremely unmoving, eyes fixed on Clu with a cold promise of death.

"_I_ made this world. My code went into the structures, system protocols. Programs, even." His gaze fell to Tron, and he smirked, twisted glee chasing the self-righteous pride across his face. "Some more than others."

Clu's eyes went back to Sam, features twisted in faint contempt. There was something else, though, something stronger than the scornful blankness. Hate. Good. The copy's lips twitched upwards, and he shook his head, voice soft. "Really, Sam. What kind of ruler, creator—what kind of _programmer_ do you think I'd be if I let people turn my tools against me?" Sam blinked, uncomprehending.

"Isn't that right, Rinzler?"

Tron didn't answer.

Sam's gaze drew haltingly towards the program, a hazy desperation rising. Tron should respond. Sam needed to hear his voice, to see his face, _something_. But there was silence, no sound at all as Tron stiffened. Colors pulsing, mixing, moving, orange chasing blue chasing orange in little streaks and threads and patchy broken edges through the visible lights as they dimmed, surged, _crackled_. Quorra was watching, face grim, eyes meeting Sam's in a brief glance as she shifted slightly, stance flowing to a new readiness, a new edge. And _no_, he had to tell her she shouldn't, _she can't_—but there was no sound, nothing but a distant rising hum that seemed to be building in the back of Sam's head as he stared at Clu's grin, at Tron's stillness—abruptly broken, head jerking around as Quorra frowned suddenly, her own head tilting—

The world exploded into motion. Quorra was turning, moving, throwing, but Sam hardly saw her, hardly cared. He stumbled back, disk coming up because _I have to_, but he _couldn't_. Because Tron—Rinzler—no, it _had _to be Tron, it had to be—was moving towards him in a low, dark blur of speed.

Face sectioning away behind a dark helmet.

The hum in Sam's brain was louder now. Uselessly, pointlessly, he thrust his disk frontwards. Rinzler dropped below, limbs flowing effortlessly around the desperate attack. Rigid hands closed on his arm, his shoulder, and Sam fell, was thrown sideways as the black shadow followed.

Breath left him as he hit rough stone, and Sam gasped, flailed frantically as he tried to force air to his lungs, movement to his limbs, _distance_. He was stuck—_trapped, can't run_—had fallen into a crevice of the dark rock, and he had to get _up_. But Rinzler was there, pressing down from above against his ineffectual struggles.

Sam stared up at the dark helmet, his throat tightening with pain and despair and furious refusal. Because… _no_. Not now, not… _He was getting better_. The thought was a quiet whisper against the raging, wordless noise in his mind.

"Sam." Distorted, voice harsh with effort, but clear. "Stay _down_."

Sam's eyes widened. He looked up in shock, head raising as the humming sound built—not in his brain, not at all. But not far. Yellow glow spilled out, casting across the shattered pieces on the ground, silhouetting the blue-lit program who crouched above Sam, pressing him down—

The broken jet exploded in a pulse of brilliant light before the impact slammed Sam to darkness.


	9. Strength

A/N: ...Entering the final stretch. Two chapters left after this one. Thanks so much to everyone who's read and reviewed; you are a happiness-inducing bunch.

Oh, uh... fair warning? The (biggest) reason for this to be rated T isn't language or sex.

* * *

><p>Sam felt vaguely certain something had gone wrong.<p>

The headache was his first clue. Also the first thing he noticed. _Fuck._ The only thing he'd be noticing for a while, maybe. Why had he woken up?

It was sharp pain. Head. Neck. Maybe shoulders. Hard to tell. The halfhearted voice of experience (which was even _less_ happy about being awake) told him it was more a "head trauma pain" than a "hangover pain." That was… worse. Yeah. Shit, if he had another concussion… _Alan's going to _kill_ me._

He frowned. There was something wrong with that thought. A nagging worry tugged at Sam's mind, and he cautiously tried to open his eyes. Darkness. Fuzzy darkness. _Huh. _He blinked a few times, winced slightly as he tried to move his head. He was lying on something hard, edged—especially under his skull. The rest might just be rock, or broken concrete, but the sharp edges under the back of his head… had he been sleeping on broken glass?

_Where the hell am I?_

It was a dark sky. Above him. Clouds, shadows… through glass. Plastic? A helmet. He blinked again, head shifting slightly. This wasn't his motorcycle helmet. That was darker, more fully enclosing, almost black…

Sam froze. A black helmet, staring up at him as the ground rushed towards them both. Blue dashes tilting in tense uncertainty as Sam settled closer. Above, over him, _protecting _him as the blast hit.

Folding away to a pale face, grey eyes intent, mouth twisted in a determined frown. A reluctant smile.

_Tron._

Sam gave a yelp of pain as he struggled to sit up, memory, recognition, and overwhelming dread settling in as he pushed against the rough stone of the Outlands. _Tron. Quorra. Shit, shit, shit, Clu!_ Sam's visor tilted strangely across his vision as he moved, and the hand he brushed against the back of his head came away sticky with blood and shattered fragments. The helmet had _broken? Probably shouldn't have tried to look up when it… _He shook his head impatiently, helmet retracting to clear his view, then winced at the throbbing ache and dizziness the motion provoked. He gritted his teeth and pulled the world back to focus. No time.

The clifftop was empty. Bleak. A faint glimmer reflected off some of the rocks in the light of his circuits—tiny crystalline slivers, almost fading into the black stone. Sam swallowed shakily, remembering the fragments falling from Quorra's wounds, the shattered heaps spilling across the arena floor. But _no_—Clu had blown up the fucking lightjet; of course there would be debris. It wasn't clustered the way it would if… _No._ They were fine. Just not… there.

He turned, staring across the rough ground as it stretched along the clifftop to the right and left. Sam's hands braced against the rock, and he pushed himself up slowly, head craning to look behind.

His eyes caught, inexplicably, on the least visible part of the image. Dark armor blended with dark stone, the crumpled form unmoving. Muted lights flickered a dim blue-white, weak glow almost imperceptible amidst the tiny cracks and faint scoring that glinted across the program's body. Rinzler's helmet—_Tron's _helmet was slumped, angled against the ground, black surface reflecting the light from above.

Yellow light. Yellow armor. Clu, leaning over, gaze focused downwards. But not at Tron. _No. _At the floating characters in the air, lines scrolling up from the faintly lit circle below. Red-orange center. Blue-white rim.

Tron's disk.

Sam stopped breathing, stopped thinking, and _moved._

The yellow program was intent, focused on the display as a gloved hand came up to touch the image. Momentary distraction, annoyance crossed Clu's face, and his gaze flicked upwards. His eyes widened, and after that Sam had no idea what Clu thought, because he wasn't looking, he was hitting, colliding, ramming into the armored body with a shout of fury as he brought them both down.

They crashed into the ground, Sam's vision swimming from the impact despite landing atop his larger opponent. He didn't stop, though. They were tumbling, rolling across the uneven rocks, and Sam didn't even _know _which way was up, but he moved, struggled, grabbed at his dad's copy and struck out at whatever he could find. Words spilled out, Sam incoherent with desperate rage as Clu snarled back in frustration.

"Get _away _from him—"

"You stupid little—"

"You don't get to—you _can't_—"

"Just stay down and—"

"You fucking bastard!"

Clu laughed.

They'd come to a stop. Sam's clearing vision placed them nearly thirty feet to the side of where they'd started—closer to the cliff edge than to Tron. _Good. _He glared down at the program below him, at Clu's face—_Dad's face_—twisting from harsh laughter to a cold smile. Sam struck out furiously, fist connecting once, twice, Clu's head turning sideways as the blows landed.

The program raised an eyebrow, face calmly amused. "You're actually angry. For _him_." The voice was hard, edged, with a faint note underneath that almost sounded like wonder. Clu's eyes narrowed, and when Sam reached out again, a yellow-lit hand caught his fist, grip painfully tight. The program smirked up at him, eyes hard with malice as he spoke. "It's your fault, you know. He took the hit for _you_. User." The soft tone hissed over the last word, mocking, bitter, vicious.

Sam flinched. He yanked back, trying to pull free, but Clu's empty arm snaked up around, and Sam was grabbed, flipped. The rough stone hit with bruising force, and he gasped for air, choked as a forearm pressed into his throat. His father's face loomed above unsteadily, words cutting through the dull pounding in his ears.

"A true user. Destroying everyone else to save your worthless skin." Sam couldn't speak, couldn't breathe, couldn't see through the explosions of color across his closing eyelids. The pressure let up slightly, and he gasped, drawing what air he could as he blinked up at his dad's impassive face. _No_. Clu's face.

"He could have run. They both could." A corner of Clu's mouth quirked upwards, and he shook his head. "You've really got a habit of breaking things, kiddo."

Frustration. Rage. Stupid, stupid panic. A sickening, unbearable whisper that Clu was _right_. But there was something else, something important, and Sam chased the stray thought through the haze of shame and fury.

_'Both'…_

No.

He tensed, jerked uselessly against the unmoving hold. His voice was a desperate rasp, but he had to know, had to say it, even if it was what the bastard wanted. "Quorra?"

Clu's smile was grimly satisfied. "What do you _think_?"

_No_. Clu was a liar. Clu was always a liar. _No_. Sam coughed, curling inwards as the program's fist drove into his gut, what little breath he had leaving him. He was dimly aware of Clu standing, moving away. Of his own body's feeble twitches, the sputtering gasps as his lungs strained for air. _NO_. But he kept seeing her. His friend, his father's 'rescue'. Fuck, the _sister_ he'd never known he had. Stepping between him and danger. In the lightrunner. The club. Running across the Rectifier. _'Removing herself from the equation'_. Eager, ready, but always too ready to throw herself away.

Her head turning at the humming sound, throwing her disk, moving. But not to run. She could have run.

_They both could have._

Sam forced his weak limbs to move, tried to even his ragged breaths as he pushed himself up to sitting. He stared out, gaze fixed on Clu, several yards off. The program faced away from Sam as he leaned down to pick something up. Sam didn't need the glimpse of a curving edge, faint orange glow. He knew what it was. Knew why.

Clu was stronger than him.

_Time to improvise._

"Does it piss you off?"

Sam's voice was raw, weaker than he'd like, but he spoke as loudly as he could, and Clu half-turned, though his attention stayed on Tron's disk as it rotated in his hands. Sam kept going. "That they'd die for me?" It bothered _him_; it bothered him a _lot_, but that wasn't the point. "No one would ever do that for you."

Clu's chuckle was anything but disturbed. _Disturbing, maybe. _"Hardly. There are thousands of programs who would derezz themselves for my slightest advantage." He tilted the disk, inspecting it in the bright glow of his circuits. "Rinzler _especially_."

Sam gritted his teeth. _Not_ what he'd been going for. "Not by choice," he snapped back.

Clu made a soft noise, almost a hum of satisfaction. "Don't be an idiot. Of course they choose to." The blue-white edge lit in his hand, display flickering above. "They just need… fixing, first."

_Fuck_. He would _kill_ Clu. But he couldn't, not like this, so… something else.

"Dad _said _you were broken." Sam put as much scorn as he could into the words, and something flickered across Clu's face. "Guess he was right. Not a user, not even a working program. Just a messed-up copy. His 'mistake'."

"Is that what he said." Clu's voice was even, expression disinterested. But he'd stopped.

"Pretty much." Sam kept his own tone level, mind racing for the words. "I mean, you can't create programs, right? Can't make anything of your own? Just ripping off more of his work." Clu was looking at him now, really looking, and Sam felt a tiny burst of triumph as he continued. "Not that he blames you. Just bad coding on his part. It's not like you _meant_ to be a traitorous screwup. You can't help it, right?"

That did it. A small smile, a _real_ smile, twitched across Sam's face as Tron's disk darkened, Clu placing it back on the ground before rising, turning. The program's steps were slow, unhurried as he moved closer. Sam looked up at him, unable to control the slight tremor in his still-drained limbs. Or the stupid, _stupid _words that bubbled out in reckless defiance.

"Is that why you left me alone? 'Cause of Dad?" He thought of Quorra, and for a moment, he meant the vicious edge. "Because he'll _kill_ you, delete you like—"

Clu moved in a blurring strike, and for the second time in as many minutes, Sam felt the air leave his lungs, a fist driving into his stomach, twisting savagely in the soft organs. He retched, tried to curl in as his body spasmed weakly around the blow. But a foot hit his side, then another, and he rolled over the sharp-edged rocks, unable to fight, to move, to control the faint whining gasps as he strained for breath.

The jarring motion stopped, and Sam stared, dazed at the sideways landscape, clouds next to sea next to cliff. _Must be close to the edge._ Then he stopped thinking, stopped caring as a boot stomped down on his ribs. A sharp sound, bright fire in his side, and he screamed, grabbed desperately, kicked, squirmed as Clu pressed _down_, pressure grinding sharply where it hurt to _breathe_.

"Yes, Sam." The voice was soft, close. Too close, and he flailed up, reaching uselessly towards the face that hovered above. "It is 'because of Flynn'." The program leaned forward, and Sam jerked back, bit his lip and tasted blood as he tried to stop from crying out.

"I told you before. Flynn can't delete me. Can't find me. Not without wrecking the Grid, without tearing through the system code. Destroying everything." It wasn't his dad's face anymore, Sam knew that, and he was almost grateful for the cold hard eyes that gazed down in constant reminder. "And he won't do that, Sam. Not with you here."

The weight lifted off his ribs, and Sam gasped raggedly in relief, wincing at the sharp pain as he inhaled. But then a jerking pull dragged him up, lifted him, and he blinked lightheaded at Clu's face as it swam back into view. There was something important he had to say. _Right._

"Go fuck—"

The phrase cut off as Clu shook him, the jarring motion bringing bright agony back to his ribs, his head. He lost his train of thought.

"I could drop you now." The whisper was dark, tempted, and Sam blinked down at the darkness, realization dawning as he saw the water below. He flailed in earnest now—dropping seemed _great_, the sea only twenty feet or so below—but Clu's grip stayed firm, unbothered by his efforts as the program continued. "But users are so fragile. A program might be lost, trapped in the fragmented currents forever. You? You'd drown. In _minutes_." A disparaging noise interrupted the words. "In your current state, my virus might even derezz you." Sam felt the grip shift, the program turning, pulling him back above the rocks.

"I can't let you die, Sam. Not without consequences." Hatred flares in the voice. "You're Flynn's _son_, after all."

"But I can hurt you."

Sam yelled as he was thrown, shoved, and when his head cracked against the rock… he didn't know what noise he made. Vision whited out, his ears roared, and he couldn't focus, couldn't find himself, find anything, make anything work. Dizziness, dazed confusion, ten times worse than when he woke. He grasped desperately at the ground, trying to focus, to see something through the haze, waiting tensely, useless fury running against nausea and fear as he blinked back nothingness, points of light, color swimming randomly. And he still couldn't _breathe _right.

Hearing came back first. "_Sam_." The voice was in front of him, angry. Rough. He flinched, jerked back. Or tried to. He couldn't seem to move right.

"_Sam!_" Louder, sharper. _Urgent?_ He didn't understand. But maybe it didn't matter, since he couldn't _do_ anything. The clustered lights darkened in his vision, gaining focus, clarity. Shape.

Clu was facing away, which didn't make any sense. No, he was further away, but facing towards Sam, yellow lines unmistakable in the gloom. But there was light in front of Sam too, small dots and circles and dashes. Facing away, looking back. Two larger circles, to the front—sides—he couldn't tell.

Blue circles. Red inside.

_Oh._

Sam's head fell back softly against the stone, thoughts numb. _That's good, then_. Tron was there, disks up and ready, standing in front of Sam as he looked back. Asking something. Sam needed to answer, to tell Tron how glad he was that he was here, was okay. But speaking was difficult, and Clu was still there.

Later, then.


	10. Choice

"—you move?"

Tron was _insistent_. Sam groaned, opened his eyes to blink up at the blue-lit figure, helmet turned back towards him. The disks in the program's hands were mesmerizing, blazing in his unsteady vision. _Whoa._

"Sam!"

Right. This was important. _What was I…_ Moving. Yeah. Sam's hands found the rocky ground, and he pushed against it, head raising experimentally before a throbbing pain and dizziness hit. _Bad choice._ Sam inhaled sharply. Wished he hadn't. _Worse choice._

He looked up at Tron as his vision cleared again, expression darkly dubious, and answered. "…Maybe."

The helmet was still, fixed in his direction for a long moment before it tipped slightly towards Tron's front. The program shifted, visibly tensing, and Sam frowned at the thin cracks and lines that seemed brighter as Tron stiffened. The injuries looked worse from behind—which made sense, given the program had faced Sam when the explosion went off. _Protected _Sam.

He kept doing that.

"Sam." Tron was looking at him again, but that wasn't what drew Sam's attention. Tron's voice was… strained. More than strained. Rough, edged, almost choked out. Sam stared, trying to focus past his blurred eyesight to the coiled tightness in the program's form, the way he hunched forwards, stance painfully rigid, head jerked back towards Sam. He couldn't see Tron's face. That felt wrong.

"You should—you have to—" The blue-white glow was dim, weakly stuttering as Tron struggled for words. His head dipped down, yellow light reflecting off the glassy surface of the mask. "You… have the baton."

Sam stared, confused. _Yeah, but…what?_ He might be able to get up and use it if he really tried. Probably could. Make a lightcycle… or a jet. But last he'd heard, doubling up was a bad plan—especially when there were good odds of aggressive pursuit. Didn't seem helpful. _Now if he could tell me where my disk is…_ when _had _he dropped it?

Tron was looking at him. Right, the baton. "…Want it?" Sam managed, his own voice less even than he'd like.

Tron stared. The helmet dropped, rose, shook from side to side in wordless, desperate refusal Sam didn't _understand_. He could hear Tron breathing, short, fast bursts of faint static from behind the black mask, could see his hands clenching furiously around the disks. Acute, pained tension was clear in every line of the program's body as he struggled to respond. To say something.

"Sam, —"

Laughter filled the pause, and Tron's head snapped forwards. "You can't say it, can you?" Clu sounded amused, faintly surprised, and Sam glowered at the yellow-lined shape that spoke from past Tron. "You really can't."

"Shut up." Tron's words were immediate, harsh with rage.

"You can't do it. Not again. Not _anymore_."

"Shut _up_."

Clu's tone turned soft, mocking. "Hardly 'fighting for the users'. But that's not what you do, is it, Rinzler? Not anymore."

Tron flinched, helmet dropping, tilting back again. "Sam—you should—"

"You betrayed Flynn." Tron froze. "_Failed_ him." Clu spoke calmly, words insistent, pressing forcefully. Tron's head was bowed, form shaking as his circuits flickered. _Oh, fuck no_. Sam fixed his gaze on Clu and pushed off the ground, anger driving him past pain and dizziness. He made it to sitting before he had to stop, breathing, gagging, swearing at the stabbing in his ribs as nausea hit in full force. He kept his eyes on Clu, focused pure hatred on the wavering yellow shape as details faded and returned.

Clu kept going.

"You _chose_ to give in." Tron's head jerked sideways in strained denial, but Clu continued with a quiet chuckle. "Flynn probably thought you'd derezz long before you turned on his ideal."

The helmet snapped up. "I—"

"You _clearly_ had no trouble bypassing my work when you really felt the need." Clu's speech was dismissive and firm all at once. Overriding. "Why didn't you do that before? You let the ISOs die. Derezzed them, took apart the rebellious glitches that followed—and _enjoyed_ it." Tron didn't move, didn't speak, and Sam stared up, dryness growing in his throat. "Even Yori wasn't—"

Tron lunged forward with a crackling snarl, a furious broken sound as he stabbed out with his disks. But Clu's own disk was raised, a yellow ring blocking the straightforward attack, and Clu laughed as he leaned in, pressed against Tron as his taunting voice rose above the crashing hum. "Oh, you _tried._ It was almost impressive. But you clearly didn't give it your all, did you?"

The larger program shoved, and Tron stumbled back a few steps. His fists tightened on the disks, grip twisting as they raised, lowered, drew back to throw before dropping, rising. Sam watched, uncertainty battling a growing dread as Tron's earlier words trickled through his mind unprompted. _'I didn't attack Clu. I… couldn't.'_ The program's head dipped abruptly, shook from side to side as patches of orange pulsed briefly across his circuits. _'Commands, directives… the corruption's still there.'_

"You failed him." Clu's disk lowered as he looked at Tron, a faint smile spreading across his face. "Utterly." Clu's eyes were intent, almost searching as he stared at the black mask. "But that's all right."

"You know the truth, _Tron_. He failed you first."

Sam swallowed, stared up at them both. Clu was smiling, gaze fixed on Tron. Who was… still. Not frozen, not rigid or stiff—but unmoving. Silent.

"Flynn betrayed you. Betrayed us _both_. He took advantage of us all, twisted the system into something it was never meant to be—and left us to clean up the chaos that resulted."

Tron's reply came out edged. "No. _You_ betrayed us. Destroyed—_corrupted_—" The words rose in rough bursts, static shading his voice.

"Oh, I did a lot of things." Clu's mouth twitched, gaze coldly satisfied. "Especially to you."

"But he _let_ me."

Tron flinched.

"He left. Never looked behind. Never came back for you."

"I never asked him to." Tron's tone was almost even.

"Oh, but you wouldn't." Clu's grin became vicious. "Flynn was your friend, your _user_—and we all know how much that matters to you. Used to matter?" He laughed softly. Then the derisive mask fell away, a flat stare underneath. "Too bad you didn't matter as much to him."

"Flynn—"

"Flynn _left_ you. Abandoned, discarded, threw you away—you weren't useful to him. Why would he care? After all, you failed him so badly." Clu's eyes glinted as Tron's helmet dipped, rose jerkily. "_I_ saved you. I took you in—"

"You destroyed me!" Tron's voice was a harsh, crackling noise, reminding Sam uncomfortably of the broken sounds the program made as they had fallen. "Warped—ruined—_enslaved_—"

Clu scoffed. "You were always a slave, Tron. The difference between Flynn and I is that I _cared_."

Tron stood his ground as Clu stepped forward, though Sam could see the blue-lit hands tightening on their disks, the program's crouched stance tensing, readied. Clu paused just out of reach, head tilted.

"You _never_ had a choice." His face was calm, unflinching. "Your orders were programmed in from the beginning—fight for the _users_, serve the _users_. And it might make sense for some newly written script for whom users are a distant voice in the sky. But you?" Clu's lip curled. "You've met Flynn. Known him. _Served_ him. You know the truth."

"Users. Don't. Care."

_Yeah, fuck you too, Clu. _Sam glared, pushed up on the ground and leaned forward, mouth opening to respond, because it didn't matter how little he knew, Clu didn't—

Tron laughed.

Clu's face blanked, and Sam suspected his own expression looked similar. But Tron _laughed_, shook his head, and straightened slightly, tension falling away. "No." Speech clear, almost amused, helmet angling fractionally back. "Users care." His tone darkened, but stayed firm. "_Flynn_ cared—"

"_No?_" Clu's eyes flashed. "Flynn used you, left you—left all of us, again and again! His 'real world' always came first." For the first time, Clu's gaze flicked briefly past Tron, and Sam gladly met the bitter glare with his own anger. "His _son_ came first."

The program's focus snapped back to Tron, voice low, harsh. "We were a toy, a diversion. Flynn chose the ISOs over us, praised their 'free will'—then blamed us when we turned on him." Clu's head jerked sideways, face no longer smirking, but tensed in frustration. Eyes intent.

"Users _lie_. They betray. At their best, they _use _us like tools—and we're supposed to praise them for that? They hold themselves up as caring, loving gods when they're no more than indifferent masters."

"You—" Quiet fury filled Tron's voice.

"I did what I did out of need. Out of _love_. Flynn? He just didn't think we were 'human' enough to matter."

"Flynn cared." Tron didn't back down. "And what you did—"

"What _I_ did?" Clu's laugh started wild, empty, but when he spoke again, the calm control was restored, tone softly mocking. "Have you thought about what Flynn will do to you?"

Tron stopped. Froze. Sam stared up in confusion. At Tron, blue-white circuits dimly flickering. At Clu's smile, grimly satisfied.

"Assuming he doesn't just delete you. After all, you've failed him so _badly_… but no. You don't think he'd do that." Tron didn't answer, and Clu smirked. "After all, Flynn _cares_. What else, then?"

Clu's voice was a hiss. "He'll _rectify_ you."

…_What? _

"'Fix' you. Go into your base code and rewrite you. Reset. Repurpose."

Sam closed his eyes, opened them. Looked up at Clu, leaning forward, at Tron… who hadn't flinched so much as cringed, body tightening, hunching inwards as the glow of his circuits wavered patchily. Bright-dark, blue-orange. _No. It's not… come on._

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be _happier_. Flynn will purge everything that's happened, everything that's changed. Make you a joyful little slave again. _Eager_ to fight for him, to serve him. Serve them both."

_Fuck._ Sam _had_ asked. Asked if they could 'fix' Tron. _'Undo whatever's changed.'_ Sam's breath caught, fists clenching as he remembered the program's reaction. Tensing, turning away. Tron hadn't looked at him for a while after that. Wasn't looking at him now.

"You may not like what I made of you, Tron. But you're different now. You've changed." Clu's huff of breath fell between a laugh and a snort. Derisive either way. "You may even have learned something. Flynn will 'cure' that. Delete memories, overwrite protocols. Make you cater to the whim of an uncaring master rather than work to better the system. To fight for the _programs_."

"_No_." Tron's voice was a static-edged rasp, quietly desperate, and Sam had no idea what part of Clu's words he was rejecting. _Does it matter?_

"Oh, yes." Clu's gaze was fixed. Cold, unrelenting, as he _kept talking_. "How do you know he didn't do it before? Erase any questions you came to have? Any doubts? Memories? That's—"

"Fuck it—_no_!" Both programs gave a twitch of surprise at the interruption. Clu's head tilted, malice resettling. But Tron didn't turn back, and Sam stared at him as he fumbled for the words. "I wouldn't—_Dad_ wouldn't…" Only he didn't know what his father had done, and what _he_'d suggested had been far too close… "Not—fuck, not like that! Tron—" he faltered, gazing desperately up. _Just… look at me._

"Not 'like that'?" Clu was delighted. Vicious. "They're users, Tron. How else did you think it would be?"

The yellow circuits blazed vividly as Clu took a step closer. Tron flinched, tried to step back—then stopped, helmet swiveling to Sam, directly behind. The program stiffened, spun towards Clu, and held in place, weapons raised as he tensed, form hunched inwards. Clu smirked, stood well within reach, his own disk loose at his side.

"You still don't have a choice. You can't do _anything_ to stop them. But I can. I edited my own code, buried myself in system output. Flynn can't _find_ me from out there. I could do that to you."

"No." It _was _like before, during the fall—Sam heard the same broken crackle edging Tron's speech, and his gut twisted at the sound.

"One change. One upgrade, and you'd be free of him."

_Yeah, right_. Sam shoved himself up to standing, clutching his side as he breathed, straightened through the dizzy lurching. "One more chance to fuck with him." He didn't have the words, the tone, the ability to express enough hate as Clu smiled back.

"Do you really think I have to?" His eyes glittered as he inspected Tron. The program pulled back, leaned forward, body tight with contained aggression, disks gripped in rigid hands as rapid breaths hissed beneath the helmet. "I almost like you better this way." Clu stepped closer.

Tron attacked. Sam blinked in shock—one moment, the program was tense, readied, the next, a blue edge crashed against yellow, Clu barely blocking in time. Sam stepped back, gaze flitting across the rocks for his own disk—_fuck_, where _was_ it, there wasn't _time_—as Clu shoved outward. Tron faded back, came up underneath, his other disk nearly brushing Clu's head as the other program dodged aside.

Clu's eyes narrowed, and a strange look crossed his face. He moved in again, and Tron's weapon was a searing arc towards the yellow program's center. Sam's eyes widened.

Clu didn't dodge.

Tron didn't follow through.

The disk stopped right in front of Clu's chest, blue-white rim blazing. The program looked down at the disk, up towards the black mask. And laughed.

"You can't."

"Shut up." Tron's voice was still distorted, harsh with effort, and he shook, tension flowing down from the raised arm, body rigid.

Clu grabbed the program's forearm, pulled, and Tron jerked back in alarm, disks darkening as his circuits flickered. Clu didn't let go. "You won't _let _yourself."

"_You_—" A crackling static ate the rest of the words, but the pure fury got through clearly.

Clu's mouth curled upwards, and he returned his own disk to his back. "You can't fight me, _Rinzler_. So stop trying."

Tron froze. Was still for a long moment. The helmet tilted, its dashes orange-red with points of blue. He shuddered. Then the clenched hands opened, disks dropping inactive to the ground as the blue-white trace faded from the program's circuits.

_NO._

Sam lunged forward, towards Clu, towards _Tron_. One step, two, and a yellow-lined boot kicked him back. He fell hard, tucked his head and twisted to avoid his injured side. The impact still made him gasp, and gasping nearly made him scream, the sharp agonizing _clicking_ of his ribs maddening.

"_Sam_!" He looked up, struggled to move forwards. For a moment, blue-white light seemed to flare, but no, it was orange and yellow in rapid motion. A black helmet snapped around, staring down at him as a gold-circuited arm gripped and pulled. Clu fell forward, pinning the lighter program beneath him, one hand pressing down while the other felt along the ground. And Tron was twisting, freezing, wrenching away, going limp, moving and stopping in halting confused bursts. Clu held on, shoving him against the rocks while his other hand came up, clenched tightly on paired disks—and they joined, single edge flaring blue before winking out to leave the orange ring burning faintly at the center.

"Let's finish the game."

And _no, he couldn't_, but Sam wasn't fast enough, couldn't move right, stumbled and fell as he tried to scramble forward. Words tumbled from his mouth as his mind raged uselessly. "_No_—stop—you—" He swallowed the incoherence, eyes fixed in panic as Clu lined up the disk, centered it flat above Tron's back. _NO._

"You said—you said you liked him better. As himself."

Clu paused long enough for a pitying smirk. "I said 'almost'."

He pressed down, twisted. The disk locked in its port, and Tron dropped, inert, circuits dark. Clu was standing, speaking, but Sam couldn't see him. Couldn't hear him. He watched the black form, focused on _Tron_ with desperation. Loss. _Need_. Everything. More than he knew he had.

The orange ring brightened on the program's back, lighting in a circle. As it closed, the darkness of the black armor seemed to even, solidify, and Sam's eyes caught on the sealing cracks, the broken edges knitting back together. Then the lights blinked, lit a solid orange, and Sam closed his eyes. It didn't help.

The broken purring echoed through the darkness.

The program stood easily, fluidly. Knees bent, shoulders hunched inwards. The dark mask swiveled to survey the rocks. Clu. Sam. The sea. The helmet tilted slightly, ticking rumble continuous as the assessment completed, then returned to center, dipping down. Still. Waiting.

"Tron!"

Nothing.

"_Tron_!" Sam's voice was jagged, catching painfully in his throat. No answer.

A chuckle broke the quiet, and the black-shelled head lifted slightly, turned. "You're doing it wrong," Clu commented. His expression was calm as he gazed down to inspect the orange program, though the grin tugging upwards leaked relief and triumph in equal parts.

Sam stared up numbly. "No."

"Yes." Clu smiled, a bright silhouette against the dark sky and sea. "Let me show you. _Rinzler_. Disk."

The program pivoted towards Clu and ducked his head, reaching back to pull the item free. "Now that we're past the… interruptions," Clu smirked, gaze fixed on Sam, "I can actually finish. What with your idiocy, I didn't—"

Sam almost missed it.

He wanted to close his eyes, shut his ears, anything to blot out the scene in front of him. To wipe out Clu's smile, eerily familiar and overwhelmingly repulsive. To stop his eyes tracing the orange-lit 'T', the submissive bow of the black helmet as it reflected the yellow light in front. He wanted to look away, hide, retreat.

But he _couldn't_ stop looking, watching, _aching_ inside as he stared at the program who'd helped him, saved him. Fought for him. Again and again. He couldn't stop hoping. Painfully, uselessly, stupidly wanting. He didn't turn away. He didn't _blink_.

He might have missed it if he'd blinked.

Tron was that fast.

Clu was standing, talking, gloating down at Sam, hand idly extended to accept the identity disk. And then he was moving, flying, _falling_. Face twisted for an instant in disbelief, a startled shout beginning to sound out. Limbs rose, jerking up to shove away the black shape. Tron moved in a silent, perfect blur. Helmet down, arms reaching out, legs pushing off the rock.

But he didn't attack. Didn't try to strike out. Didn't push Clu away. Tron closed in. Held on. And drove them both backwards.

Over the cliff.

There was no warning. No pause. Just a single, graceful instant of motion. A cut off yell, a faint splash. And nothing.

Sam stared at the empty stone in confusion. Disbelief. Shock.

_…Tron_.

Loss.

"_No._" His voice was a croak, a dry, desperate whisper. No one heard it.

He was alone.


	11. Purpose

A/N: ...and we're done. Hope you guys have enjoyed the experience as much as I have; I've had a lot of fun going through this.

Much, much thanks to all who've been reviewing, especially those of you who've put in the effort for longer comments. You are quite definitely what motivated me to keep working and update quickly. Additional thanks to those on the meme who provided encouragement when I was writing it little chunks at a time; those people (and the awesome prompter) are why this story exists at all.

...End of Line?

* * *

><p>He fell.<p>

The dark water rushed up below. Clu's poison. Flynn's hope. Clu had corrupted it so long ago, in a place not much different from this—and he had failed to stop it. He could have. He was capable of so much more, then.

But he had failed to act. Let Clu destroy the Sea. Destroy the ISOs. Betray Flynn. He had failed to fight hard enough. Let himself be warped and limited and ruined until he couldn't win. Couldn't fight at all.

Until this was all he was.

Yellow fury burned outside the dark shell of his helmet, and he could feel Clu stiffening, shock and rage twisting the form in his grasp. _Too late._ He couldn't fight, but he could fall. Couldn't strike out, couldn't derezz his destroyer. But he could hold on. Could grasp Clu, pull him close as they both dropped towards the end.

It was all he could do.

The snarling face disappeared, helmet sectioning over it in pieces, melding seamlessly in the space of nanocycles. This visage was hardly better—it still called to broken commands, corrupted protocol twisting inside. Pressing him to obey, submit, bow for repairs and be filtered, restricted. Caged. Like so many times before. The sickening fury/shame/uncertainty still surged through his processing, conflicting directives trying to delete, rewrite, block each other out. _I'm gaining ground._ He almost laughed. It didn't matter now. None of it mattered. Helmet and armor might give some shield against the virus, stop Clu derezzing of his own corruption. But the Sea was deep, shattered code blinding, currents broken and fragmented. Clu would be lost, uncontrolled, float forever in the unending glitches.

Tron would be lost.

The program smiled. Tron had been lost for hundreds of cycles. Since he had failed to fight. Failed to stop Clu. Failed at so much. What he'd _done_, what he'd _become_… _No_. He wrenched his thoughts away. Redirected. This was what he deserved. What he wanted. What he'd expected since he found himself in the sky. Crashed above the water. Even then, he had failed to fight back. He would have fallen. Been glad to fall.

But _Sam_.

The user had needed him. Stayed with him. Fought for _him_. Fought to save him. The program's eyes flickered, sharp, painful loss cracking through the dull regret. Sam had refused to leave. Refused to let go. Had made him think, if only briefly, that he could be himself again. Had refused to let him think otherwise.

He hadn't looked away, not even at the end.

_He should let go._ The program knew that. But the wish was a lie he couldn't bring himself to hope. Sam cared. Would be hurt. _Had_ been hurt, for his sake. But no matter how illogical the thought, no matter how much better it would be, he couldn't wish for the user's indifference. He was _glad_ Sam had cared (_so desperately glad_), even as he regretted the pain it would cause.

The smile twitched faintly. He was imperfect like that.

The water was there. Clu, shoving, striking, pushing away. And Tron laughed as he let go, orange mask bleeding from his circuits, because it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. And he watched the shifting waves, the seething data as the yellow program crossed the line, and Tron fell, found his own boundary between air and Sea and—

Jerked, body spasming around the bright line of pain across his chest. Cutting into him, immobilizing, and Tron's head snapped back inside its black confinement to stare behind.

His eyes widened.

_…Why?_

* * *

><p><em>NO.<em>

He was alone. Safe. Clu was gone.

Tron was gone.

Sam's breaths came in jagged bursts as he stared across the clifftop. Black rock. Dark sky. Empty.

_This isn't happening._

But it was, it always was, and his fists curled on the broken stone below as it hit him. Despair, panic, desperate refusal. _No no no no no…_ Tron had done it _again_. But he hadn't just risked himself for Sam, hadn't just been hurt (_this time_). He'd thrown himself away.

_For me._

He hadn't wanted it, hadn't asked for it, but what difference did that make? It was _Tron_. He fought for the users. Even Clu couldn't break him of that, not in the end. He'd fought for Flynn, crashed to save all of them, stepped between Sam and danger again and again.

_Why the hell did he _do_ that?_

Sam's vision blurred, frustration catching in his throat with a rough sound. Tron didn't have to. He could have run, could have left. Could even have joined Clu willingly. The yellow program's words echoed mockingly through Sam's head. _'He took the hit for you.'_

He shouldn't have.

Tron, grey-blue eyes wide as he stared at the world unblocked by Rinzler's mask. Circuits glowing, expression uncertain as he returned Sam's gaze. Tron _smiling_, faint and rare but fucking beautiful to see. He was just beginning to smile, to be himself after… _centuries_? That's what Quorra had said.

And now he was gone, taking Clu with him as he threw it all away. Threw himself away. For _Sam._

"Sam?"

His head snapped up. Quorra's voice. And _fuck_, he was so glad to hear her, so glad to know that she was safe. That Clu had lied. _About that_. But somehow the hollow ache didn't leave his chest. He pushed himself up anyway, twisted unsteadily to look around.

She wasn't there.

"Sam!" Sharper, louder. Strained. He could hear it, and he turned, but _that doesn't make…_

He froze. Then he _moved_, running, tripping, stumbling towards the edge.

And there was Quorra, face pained and anxious as she stared up from under the rough overhang. She was holding on, he had no idea how, one arm up, grabbing at the rock near the lip, lower body somehow wedged in beneath the edge.

Her other arm reached down. Gripped her baton, held inwards, flat against her forearm. A blue-white cord extended from the rod, wrapping around her wrist several times before it stretched down towards the water. Where it… stopped, just above the waves, coiled around something dark. Someone.

Tron.

And Sam stared, shocked and disbelieving and fucking incredulous with joy as Tron looked up, blue light reflecting of the helmet, spreading across the program's form as the orange faded from his circuits. And Sam's could feel the crazy grin splitting his face, because Tron was there, and _Quorra _was there, and—

_"Sam!"_

_Right._ His throat tightened with urgency, and he crouched down, braced, reached out to grab the ISO's shaking arm. She gripped back, and he heaved, pulling up Quorra as she pulled up Tron. They came over the cliff in a heap of tangled limbs, and Sam laughed, winced at the pain in his ribs but grinned anyways. He looked at Quorra, cut dark across her jaw as a smile spread with tired satisfaction. Looked at Tron, the program's head jerking sideways, helmet folding back to a look of utter confusion. Sam grabbed them both and pulled them closer, grip desperately tight.

They sat like that for a while, half-broken user and two half-broken programs. Sam's breaths came ragged and shallow, worse with the pressure, but he wasn't letting go, he wasn't _ever_ letting go of them again. It didn't have to make sense.

"Sam."

Quorra's voice was muffled against his shoulder, and he reluctantly gave her space as she pulled back slightly, no longer leaning on him. She was damp—not her face or head, but small droplets trickled down her black suit. Her head tilted as she examined him. "You appear to be injuring yourself."

Tron's head lifted at the words, gaze dropping to Sam's side. The program shifted, drew away, expression tensing. _Oh, hell no_. Sam grabbed him closer.

"No you don't. I'm fi—" he paused, sudden intake of breath making him grimace. "Okay, shit, it hurts. But you're not going _anywhere_."

"Sam—" Tron was still trying to pull back, if more carefully.

"No. No—" _arguing_, he'd meant to say _arguing_.

The noise that came out of his mouth was entirely less coherent as his hand found the round circuits on the program's back. There was a flashing surge, and Sam was suddenly acutely aware of their points of contact. The way the panels of light down his front pressed against Tron, the vivid shock where the lines on his arm brushed the blue-lit accents to the side of the program's chest. A wave of sensation rippled through him, and he was _glowing_, the light of his own circuits blazing brilliant white as the electric pulse left him lightheaded.

If the strangled gasp and fluctuating blue flare was anything to go by, Tron was at least as affected. As the program shook in his arms (or maybe he was shaking in Tron's), the distant fragment of his rational mind stilled in understanding.

_…oh._

Sam thought about it.

_Well, he stopped arguing._

Their lights had mostly steadied, but the program was still trembling faintly. Sam wondered if it was the circuits or just the shock of everything catching up. He held Tron either way, marveling at the solid weight of the program in his grasp, the soft brush of his hair on Sam's face as Tron rested against his shoulders. _Yeah…_ it was still hitting _Sam _that they were both here and safe. Tron probably had it ten times as bad.

He glanced up.

Quorra was _looking _at them.

Her face was mostly even. Mouth closed, features still. But there was something about the angle of her head, the slight widening of her large eyes, that managed to convey… well, a _lot_ of surprise. She blinked slowly. Gave a small shake of her head. Sam wondered if this was the program equivalent of a facepalm.

She'd drawn back at some point, and now pushed herself up slowly. Sam opened his mouth, but she cut him off, a bemused smile flickering faintly across her expression. "I'll find your disk. You really shouldn't leave it lying around."

Sam looked at her, a variety of awkward, apologetic, indignant, and anxious responses coming to mind. He'd nearly settled on 'don't go anywhere' when he was beaten to the chance.

"Wait." Tron seemed to have regained his composure. His grey-blue eyes were intent as he stared up at Quorra, head tilted.

"…Why?"

He wasn't asking about the disk. Quorra gazed back, impassive, and their similarity caught Sam off-guard. Or maybe it was just seeing two unblinking programs stare at each other. _Definitely weird._

Quorra's voice was carefully even. "I'm coming to believe that… removing oneself from the equation isn't always for the best." Her mouth quirked upwards as her eyes flicked briefly from Tron. "And Sam's bad at letting go."

Sam had a vague feeling he should object, but it would be difficult to manage while still clinging to Tron. And that wasn't changing. Tron's sideways glance seemed to reach the same conclusion, and he smiled faintly as Quorra turned to move off. _Wait_, Sam had meant to…

"Quorra. Don't—"

"I won't go far." She didn't bother hiding the amusement in her tone as she gave a vague wave behind and kept going. Sam watched her uneven steps, unable to completely lose the anxiety—Tron wasn't the only one who kept getting hurt because of him. But she settled well in sight, crouching to inspect the rocky ground.

Sam turned back to Tron. The program had been looking at him, gaze flickering across his body. At Sam's regard, Tron's grey-blue stare came up to meet his own, full of something he didn't know quite how to interpret.

"Are you all right?"

Sam's eyebrows rose. _Really?_

"I'm not the one who just jumped off a cliff. And Clu…" He shook his head. "Are _you_ okay?"

Tron's gaze unfocused for a moment, then he nodded, mouth an unhappy line. "Under… most circumstances… an active program has some control over how their disk syncs. Clu didn't think that applied to me."

Which means it didn't, before. And Tron had knowingly risked… _Fuck_. Sam pushed the thoughts back. Hating Clu more wasn't going to do anything now. Besides…

"I'm glad—really, _really_ glad—it did." He waited until Tron's eyes met his. "But that's not what I meant. Are you _okay_?"

The program blinked. He opened his mouth, then hesitated. Closed it. He looked at Sam for a long moment. Then Tron nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I think so. Yes." His voice was unsteady. Drained.

But he was smiling.

"_…Fuck_." Sam pulled Tron closer, grip desperately tight as he blinked back moisture. "Don't you _ever_—do anything like—like that. Ever again." It wasn't okay. Hadn't been, and he was so furious and so glad and… it just _hurt_.

He could feel Tron's tension. The program held him back, more cautiously, gently, though the blue-lit hands on Sam's side and back clenched, loosened, grasped him again with restrained urgency. But he could see the strain in Tron's expression too, the conflicted unhappiness as he struggled to respond.

"It… I—I couldn't _do _anything else." The words were bleak.

"You could have run! Damn it, Tron, you could've _left_." The program shook his head slightly, started to reply, but Sam was _not _hearing it. Not now.

"Clu came for _you_. That's why he was here! He could care less about me—he fucking admitted I had to stay alive!" Tron's eyes were dark as he tried to cut in, but Sam kept going. "And I don't _care _what he would've done, it couldn't have been worse than…"

_Fuck._ He couldn't get the images out of his head. Tron—_Rinzler_ in the arena cage. On Clu's ship. On the Rectifier. Head bowed, hands rigidly tight. Faceless aggression, voiceless noise. And _again_ on the clifftop, circuits dull orange, corrupted rattle empty as the black mask turned up towards Clu. It didn't even matter that it had been a trick, that Tron had been waiting beneath the shell. Because it could so easily have been real.

He fixed on the grey-blue eyes. "You could have run. You could've… _fuck_, Tron…"

_You matter._

Tron looked back at him, gaze intense. His mouth opened slowly. _If he answers with some 'user' line, I'll scream._ Yes, Tron fought for the users. But damn it, he was more than that, too. Clu was wrong. He had to be wrong. Tron had a choice. Sam stared at the program. _…Don't_.

Tron didn't. He paused for a moment, watching Sam silently. The faint smile was back, but subtly different. Challenging. Almost amused. Tron's voice had a strange note in it, surprise and warmth mixed with something stronger.

"You didn't run."

_But… oh._ Sam closed his eyes. Because what the hell could he say?

He felt the program shift in his hold, and his grasp tightened frantically before he made himself let up. Damn it, but he was so panicked, so stupid with need and painful terror. He _couldn't_ lose Tron, couldn't let him throw himself away—no matter the reason. Tron had no idea how much he mattered.

A huffing breath of soft laughter brushed his cheek. The program hadn't been moving back.

Sam opened his eyes. Tron's face was inches from his own, features cast an almost ethereal blue-white in the mingled light of their circuits. He stared at Sam, head tilted slightly as his mouth twitched in something too painfully desperate to be called a smile. The program hesitated.

Then Tron kissed him.

His lips were soft, a gentle press against Sam's own. Insistent, brief—and Tron drew back, expression uncertain.

Sam followed him.

Blue-white light flared as he found Tron's mouth again—then Sam half-yelped as a ripple of sensation pulsed across his body. Tron was grasping him gently, hands trailing down the long circuits down his back, and the program laughed softly as Sam's head jerked up at the jolting contact.

_Right_. Sam retaliated, finding the bent blue lines near the side of the dark suit and _pressing_, feeling hot electricity prickle across the connection. The program's circuits surged, and Tron's sharp gasp opened his mouth enough for Sam to move back in.

His tongue poked between their lips, but it wasn't _fair_; Tron was reaching, tracing, blue-lit fingers sparking contact along Sam's suit in a way that made it impossible to concentrate. A touch found the junction of lines and circle by his hip, and Sam shuddered at the wave of pleasure, white glow blazing as he resisted the urge to pull away and swear. Tron's eyes smirked at him, and Sam's own gaze narrowed.

He slid his hands around the program, one reaching up behind Tron's head while the other felt downwards. Sam hit the circles low in back, and Tron's eyes widened. Then it was the program's turn to tip his head up with a harsh intake of breath as Sam's left hand found what he'd been looking for. The vertical stripe at the back of Tron's neck—not _quite_ a continuation of the line he'd first set off removing the helmet. _Close enough_. He grinned at Tron as the blue eyes seemed to flicker with light, shifted his gaze to the four squares below the program's throat.

Sam lowered his head, stared fascinated at the pulsing 'T'. His mouth twitched upwards, then closed against the shape, tongue flicking out to taste the pricking hum of power. The force of it stunned him, crackling in his mouth as Tron trembled. The program was making rough, shocky little noises—or maybe Sam was, as Tron's touch traced unsteadily up the lines to Sam's shoulders, feathered down the panels on his front. And he couldn't stand it anymore, and then they were pressing together, just _holding_ each other, shaking and laughing and _there_.

And that was everything, somehow.

It was several minutes before Sam trusted his tone enough to speak. Not that he minded. He watched Tron, felt the program's warmth against him, listened to a faint even humming that seemed to come from his center. Tron watched him right back, eyes impossibly bright, reflecting Sam's glow.

"Are you—do you want to come back with us?" His voice was still uneven, but Sam couldn't bring himself to care. "Through the portal?"

Tron didn't answer right away, and Sam glanced down as he struggled to contain the _want_ behind the question. And the painful disappointment when the program shook his head.

"Not now." Sam's gaze came up. Tron was smiling at him, expression blending the recent smirk with something that ran much deeper. "Though you make a convincing argument."

Sam was pretty sure he could make a better one. _…Definitely up for trying_.

"Clu's… gone." There was a world of emotion in the words, disbelief and joy. Pain. Edged satisfaction. Wonder. Tron's look was distant, and then he met Sam's eyes again. "There's… a lot of things are going to change. Quickly. I want to help that happen. Make sure…"

"Make sure it works out well." Sam understood. Tron was too damn selfless for his own good—and probably still dealing with the _stupid_ self-blame. But that didn't make what he said less true. He'd been the Grid's protector. And maybe that was what it needed now.

What they both needed.

"…I guess I'll just have to visit. A lot." Sam could deal with that.

Tron laughed, and the sound was so damn beautiful. "I'd like that."

They sat there for a while in silence. There were things Sam wanted to say, to ask, but it was tangled up and complicated, and he couldn't find the words. And that was okay. _They _were okay. And that was really all that mattered.

Tron looked up first, then the sound of steps hit Sam's ears and he turned his own head. Quorra was there, his disk in hand, eyes bright with excitement. Amused resignation flickered across her features as she stared down at the pair of them, but her voice brimmed with eager readiness, intense gaze meeting Sam's own as she passed the disk over. "Are you ready?"

Sam took it with a nod of thanks, gave her a quizzical look. Glanced at Tron—_back_ to Tron; he hadn't spent much time looking away. The program shrugged.

Quorra stared at them, head tilting slightly, then shaking in faint disbelief. "_…Both_ of you?" _Yep, definitely a facepalm. _She sighed. "Look!" Sam turned.

Across the sea, a bright star had risen. The white light spilled across the air, a beacon. A promise.

Quorra's face was alight with joy, hope and wonder radiant as she smiled at him. "Ready to try again?"

Sam looked up at her, unable to stop grinning. She was amazing. And she would have so much to see and wonder at. _This is definitely going to be great._ He nearly laughed as her look turned expectant. _Right, should answer that_.

He gathered his legs under him and pushed up unsteadily. Then he nearly fell over. Somehow he'd been distracted recently (he couldn't _imagine_ how), but his side still stabbed sharply as he tried to breathe in deep, and… something was wrong with his head. Right, he'd hit it. Hard. _More than once? _The world tilted a lot more than he felt like it should, and he swayed before an arm caught him gently. He blinked, focused, and Tron was there, holding him up, steadying. The program smiled, expression faintly wistful, but mostly just glad. So, so glad.

"Sam?" Quorra sounded concerned.

"I'm good," he replied, looking back at Tron.

"Are you ready?" _She's _so_ ready_. He grinned.

"…Almost."

He drew Tron close one more time.

Not that they'd ever let go.


End file.
